Who are you?

This blog post is for our Data Mining subject under Mr. Mon Duremdes, which explores Online reputation and how it affects you as a person.

Reputation. Impression. How others see you...

These are just a few things a person needs to give importance to when it comes to personal interaction. In the cyberworld, we also interact with others so there's this thing called Online Reputation. With the growing number of social networking sites and with information literally at your fingertips, you can be loved or hated just by looking at your website. People can "Google" you and voila! they know you.

Online Reputation is how people see you over the internet. Reputation can actually be negative or positive. It will just depend on the person which reputation to build up and either can cost you BIG. Online reputation is a factor that affects you as a contributor to the society, as a person.

So what's the big idea? Why is your online reputation so important?

I came across an article about monitoring your online reputation and it had this comment which also happens to be a song:

"I don't give a damn about my reputation!
You're living in the past, it's a new generation!
Hey, a girl can do what she wants to do
And that's what I'm gonna do!
And I don't give a damn about my bad reputation
Oh no No, no, no, no, no, no, no Not me Me, me, me, me, me, me!!!"

Interesting! This girl actually has online reputation. You be the judge.

The world today is officially radical and more so, transparent. It's radically transparent. It is the Information Age after all. Google is already a household term. You need recipes? Google it! (Recipes? Now that's really household.) But you get my drift.

Google has changed the way people do research. No more big books and it is very transparent. Google can actually give you millions if not, billions of results for every word search you make. Every detail you can find. Every blog, site and profile can present lots of information and more importantly, criticisms which are actually really interesting to read if you ask me.

People are talking about you online. Who would not want to read juicy gossip and negative articles about others? The cyberworld has no more reservations. People say what they want to say, compliments and complaints both. It's a free (virtual) world.

So, how would you like other people blogging about you? Cool right? But that depends on the content of the blog.What could they be saying about you? How can you actually monitor your online reputation? How can you turn it all around and use these conversations to your advantage?

Here's a good news. According to the book Radically Transparent by Beal and Strauss. There are a number of do-it-yourself monitoring tools available over the internet. There's

• Google Alerts - where you can check your sites just like e-mail
  

• bloglines.com - free service where you can check favorite blogs and sites for monitoring reputation
  

• netvibes.com - where you can use feeds to regularly check your online image
  

• feedblitz.com - where you can market your sites or blogs for building up online reputation
  

• Copernic Tracker - keeps you updated on new things or posts from different sites
  

If you also want to monitor brand profiles, there's LinkedIn, Naymz and Facebook. These sites allow you to see how people respond to your favorite brands and even manage your own brand. These sites are used by professionals to broaden their network and build relationships.

The book also discusses

• how you should define who you are, create and develop your online personality.
• thinking twice before sending e-mails and posting content over the internet and
  
• creating a positive image.
  

Being radically transparent is actually a bit of a shock from our past culture of being reserved and modest. Nowadays, people react to their experiences by what they truly feel and sometimes do not even mind if they hurt or offend others online.

Online reputation or reputation itself is something that's easily forgotten or neglected because of today's culture and lifestyle. Rumors about you might have already spread online and you're the last to know. The internet is the biggest database and something about someone is bound to be in it.

Monitoring your online reputation is just as important as guarding your physical self from forces outside that may harm your integrity. As graduating students, I believe that our online reputation may very well indicate what kind of persons we are. Companies that we will apply for can research about us and not even consider calling us for an interview. That would be bad.

Our group monitors our assigned company through Google Analytics. We can actually see what's going on in the company and its competitors through updates. The Telecommunications industry is facing a lot of issues right now that might make or break their reputation. Issues like the "Prepaid Load Validity","Spam Messages", etc. Monitoring tools can actually make or break their reputation as bloggers can jump at this situation for criticism.

My group mates also discussed meaningful posts about online reputation. You can see Camille's, Chabby's, Julie's and Ikah's blogs.