Wolfram Alpha Personal Analytics for Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Wolfram Alpha Personal Analytics for Facebook

#101

Post by tripzilch » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 2:00 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #70

ninetax wrote: post #17

Do you know that feeling when a project/idea you have been working on a long time gets implemented almost exactly as you imagined it, only by someone else? Well I do now. I'm not sure if I should be excited, or listen to the sick feeling in my stomach. Edit: Thanks for the positive support! I'll keep working on the project.

This is just another example of a Wolfram product that is great (almost magical) from an algorithmic/data point of view but misses the mark from a design and product point of view. As with most of his products they are clearly designed by (and for) engineer/scientist types. This is the first time they've done something with W|A that I could see taking off since it's narcissistic, interesting, and custom for each pers…

That was a really great post (upvoted too, but I wanted to say it).

Just curious, why'd you say to not call it "data"?

Because it sounds too cold/impersonal or something? One thing I could also see such a product work well for is awareness, so that people realize not just how much private data they actively put into FB (people are slowly realizing this), but additionally how much, much more information can be extracted that was not intentionally added, but inferred from it with clever algorithms (which is kind of like a side-channel attack, I always thought).

Re: Wolfram Alpha Personal Analytics for Facebook

#102

Post by martinwnet » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 2:20 PM UTC

cmelbye wrote: post #71

Wow, the coolest part (in my opinion) is the Friend Network section at the bottom. It accurately mapped and clustered every section of my life, including my first high school, the high school I moved to after that, my college, my family, various work groups and social groups, etc. Very interesting to see visually.

All collected in neat little circles.

Maybe Google+ was onto something after all...

Re: Wolfram Alpha Personal Analytics for Facebook

#103

Post by samstave » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 3:41 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #93

Raphael wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they spend time on an interface for the government?

Not necessarily built in-house. Or, charged for at sufficiently high rates, or used as an internal research tool ("how are people using our product?"). Also, Palantir.

Yeah - I always forget about Palantir!

I'm imagining they must be like the Spanish inquisition of tech companies.

Re: Wolfram Alpha Personal Analytics for Facebook

#104

Post by gfodor » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 5:47 PM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #101

gfodor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just another example of a Wolfram product that is great (almost magical) from an algorithmic/data point of view but misses the mark from a design and product point of view. As with most of his products they are clearly designed by (and for) engineer/scientist types. This is the first time they've done something with W|A that I could see taking off since it's narcissistic, interesting, and custom for each pers…

That was a really great post (upvoted too, but I wanted to say it). Just curious, why'd you say to not call it "data"? Because it sounds too cold/impersonal or something? One thing I could also see such a product work well for is awareness , so that people realize not just how much private data they actively put into FB (people are slowly realizing this), but additionally how much, much more information can be extrac…

Yeah the "data" thing is just a rule of thumb, users aren't usually interested in data in and of itself, but how they can use it.

Creating a tool that is an expose' of how you are having your privacy violated by Facebook is a noble idea but you run the risk of creating a site that is creepy and discomforting. You run the risk, basically, of people shooting the messenger. So, tread carefully :) For example, if you're going to go that route, make sure people can only see their own results, not other peoples' (and, most importantly, they realize this is the case), and that you provide overt and helpful information on how to lock down their privacy. (Nobody likes to feel helpless, especially immediately after realizing they've been exposed.)

To me a much more attractive proposition is to figure out what parts of the W|A project (or things you've done) are non-obvious but valuable applications of non-trivial data analysis of the Facebook graph that many people would enjoy. Building an experience like this would avoid the creepy "I'm just telling it like it is" factor as well as open up the possibility to sharing each others' results which takes the experience to another level.

Re: Wolfram Alpha Personal Analytics for Facebook

#105

Post by batista » Sat, Sep 01, 2012, 2:35 PM UTC

melvinmt wrote: post #63

> all you have to do is type “facebook report” into the standard Wolfram|Alpha website. .. and connect with your Facebook account, grant extended permissions, signup for a Wolfram account, go to your mail inbox, validate your Wolfram ID, hit a dead end, sign into Wolfram with your Wolfram account, type "facebook report" in the searchbox again, wait 10 minutes for the page to load and finally.. get to see the report (…

>.. and connect with your Facebook account, grant extended permissions, signup for a Wolfram account, go to your mail inbox, validate your Wolfram ID, hit a dead end, sign into Wolfram with your Wolfram account, type "facebook report" in the searchbox again, wait 10 minutes for the page to load and finally.. get to see the report (which is nice by the way).

I just had to type “facebook report”, connect with my Facebook account, grant extended permissions, signup for a Wolfram account and then wait for the report to load.

The rest you don't have to do (go to your mail inbox and validate the Wolfram ID). Actually, I haven't YET validated the Wolfram ID I got in the mail. It let's you login and use it without validating.