Whoisi.com is a people search and tracking web site that allows users to add other people and their web profiles and news feeds, and then monitor updates for these people people using social networking profiles and RSS feeds.

Whoisi currently supports feeds from Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Picasa and any Atom or RSS news feed.

The Whoisi people search service currently allows any visitor to define a person or an identity, and add news feeds associated with that person for other users to find and follow on the Whoisis site.

To prevent mistakes or malicious use, the site maintains a revision history so that any mistakes can be reversed.

The Whoisi database already has a large number of people in it. If you search for a person’s name that you want to track and they are not currently tracked on the Whoisi site, you can add their information easily.

You can visit the Whoisi people search and tracking site @ Whoisi.com.

Source: TechCrunch.com

The rise in popularity of devices that locate where people are at any given time, like global positioning systems – GPS – are some of the best selling electronics tools ever. Cellphones now come with GPS chips. All of these search devices produce a lot of information that says something about how people travel and behave.

This personal information could provide powerful knowledge about consumer behavior, giving marketers and businesses powerful insight into social and economic trends and paving the way for better options for determining sites for offices and stores, and more effective ways to market goods and services.

In June 2008, the journal Nature printed the results of a study that collected cellphone data from 100,000 people in an unspecified European country over the span of six months and found that the majority of people follow very predictable daily routines. Knowing these routines allows you to set probabilities for people’s movements and behavior as well as track changes.

Sense Networks, an analytics company in New York, released a software program called Macrosense earlier this month to help organize and explain this information. Macrosense uses statistical algorithms to analyze the growing data about people’s location and attempts to make predictions and recommendations on various scenarios.

Macrosense can predict tourism; tell you how confident consumers are and inform retailers about the actions of their competitors.

The key to making these predictions starts with using large sets of personal and demographic data collected over several years.

Sense Network’s computer models were developed from information sources like taxicab companies, weather information, public information as well as other nonpublic information that it will not disclose.

However, the model doesn’t work for every situation that Sense tries it on, usually because more information is still required.

The Macrosense software allows companies to do“reality mining.”

Sense Networks is not the only business working on reality mining software. Inrix uses traffic info to predict traffic patterns. Path Intelligence in the UK tracks traffic flow in shopping centers by using people’s cellphone information.

Reality mining causes concerns about personal privacy, especially when people’s cellphone signals are used for tracking location data. In the U.S., it is illegal in many cases for cellphone service providers to share peoples’ location without their prior consent.

Many electronic products that people use daily, like cellphones or GPS units in cars, will increasingly allow for them to be tracked. Companies like Sense Networks are finding new and increasingly powerful ways of using this tracking and location information about people.

Source: NY Times

As social networks like Facebook and MySpace have become increasingly popular, more people are using them to search for and reconnect with past friends and classmates, while foregoing the traditional class reunions.

A recent article on Courant.com observed that often times an online reunion with a former friend or classmates is easier than travelling to meet a person or attend a class reunion.

The article discusses how Tina Lee Naro used the people search tools on Facebook to find and reconnected with an old high school friend after 10 years of being apart.

She has also used the social networking power of Facebook to keep up on interesting personal details of other people she graduated with. In fact, she has learned so much personal information on members of her graduating class that the intends to skip her 10 year reunion this fall.

Naro says that going to her high school reunion seems a lot less interesting now since she has learned so much on Facebook.

She noted “I already had all those reunion moments: ‘Really? You’re gay? You’re married? You joined the military?’”

Social networks like Facebook and MySpace are now taking a bite out of the traditional class reunion. Many separated graduates say it is easier and cheaper to exchange pictures and stories online than t make the trip home for a reunion.

One Facebook user, Chris Farmer of Vancouver, B.C., has even started a group on Facebook called “Facebook Has Eliminated the Need for a High School Reunion.”

When Farmer joined Facebook he found himself overwhelmed with messages from high school classmates, including unknown classmates he was sure he’d never spoken to before.

After Farmer sorted through all the personal details of his graduating class, he said “seeing people in real life seemed a little pointless.”

However, some people seem to be more motivated to attend class reunions in person after reconnecting with people online.

At Harvard, where the Facebook got its start, the class of 2003 is using Facebook to help plan their five-year reunion. The Harvard class of 2003 has 770 members on their Facebook reunion group ( about half of the graduating class ) and is using the social network as a marketing tool to get classmates interested in attending the class reunion in person.

Chalmer Harper, started a Facebook reunion group for his 10 year class reunion. Harper says Facebook helped him find the status of past classmates and friends, but he is looking forward for this fall’s reunion to reconnect with them in person.

Harper describes himself as a “person-to-person guy”. He says “It’s fun to find out this person moved here or does this now but for me, it’s still more important to see them and have a real conversation.”

Source: Online Reunions

A recent post on the SEOmoz blog by Jane Copland along with a long list of reader’s comments raises some concerns about Spock.com free people search engine.

Some of the concerns raised include:

1. Spock allows anyone to create and edit your personal information on the site, which raises numerous privacy concerns as well as concerns about the reasons people may have for editing your information on the site.

2. Editing or deleting information added about you does not guarantee that the changes will be made on Spock.com.

3. If you aren’t informed that a profile or personal information has been added about you on the site, you might not discover the information until it shows up in a search engine query.

4. Even when your Spock profile is claimed by you, you still have little control over the information published on it. You can’t personally get rid of any information and you have to request that the page be removed by the Spock search.

5. Turning a people search and social networking site like Spock.com into a wiki format where anyone can add and edit a profile on you allows people with a malicious intent to hijack your online identity and reputation.

6. The Spock people search allows users to flag inaccurate information. However, if you don’t know that you are in their search database, there is no way to handle the information that has been published about you on the site.

The post goes on to observe that online people search tools shouldn’t compromise privacy and allow for a misuse of personal information, by allowing complete strangers or vindictive people to edit personal information about people. People search sites like Spock should make it easier for people to control what information is published online with their names.

In addition, there have been numerous reader responses since the Spock post was published on May 14th that are critical of Spocks privacy and information editing tools.

Source: SEOmoz.com

Jigsaw is another great online people search web site. The site has been described by Inc. Magazine as “the world’s biggest Rolodex.”

Jigsaw is a business directory that lists over 8 million people. Every person listed in the Jigsaw database is complete with full name, position, address, email address and telephone number.

The Jigsaw database of people is created, corrected, updated and maintained by over 400,000 registered members.

Jigsaw’s goal is to organize personal contacts from every business on the planet. Jigsaw members contributes their collection of business cards to grow the personal information on the site.

You can visit the site @ Jigsaw.com

US federal government statistics that show people’s increasing dependence on cell phones for daily communication at the expense of traditional landline phones were released Wednesday.

* 30% of US households either use cell phones exclusively for their daily communication or rarely use their landline for calls.

* In the last half of 2007, 16% of US homes only used cell phones for calls and 13% had landlines in addition to cell phones but used their cells all of the time or nearly all of the time.

* The total number of cell-phone-only houses grew by 2% since the first half of 2007. Highlighting the rapid growth rate in cell phone useage, in early 2004 only 5% of US homes had only cell phones.

* Homes with cell phones who rarely if ever use their landlines grew by 1% during the second half of 2007.

* These households often either have their landline connected exclusively to a PC for internet access or rely so heavily on their cell phones that they ignore landline phone calls since they are more than likely unwanted sales calls.

* Low-income people are more likely than wealthier people to have only cell phones.

* People with only cell phones tend to be living with unrelated roommates, they tend to be renters, and blacks and Hispanics rather than whites.

* Approximately 33% of people under the age 30 have only cell phones.

* People with both cell and landline phone numbers who rarely or never get calls on their landline phones tend to be better educated and higher income individuals.

* Approximately 2% of US homes report having no telephones.

The Interview Survey, involved person-to-person interviews with people in 13,083 households and was conducted from July through December of 2007.

Source: Wired.com

Google isn’t the only tool in town when it comes to digging up background information on other people.

Niche and specialized search engines are making it easier to do background checks on people.

Using specialty web search sites, people are finding out previously unknown information about coworkers, friends and family as well as complete strangers that doesn’t typically turn up on a normal search engine query. These specialty search engines typically bring together existing public records and make them easier to search.

ZabaSearch.com collects public records like criminal records, directory assistance information and birthdates.

Spock.com and Wink.com are two free people search engines that specialize in finding people’s personal pages on social networking sites.

Spokeo.com is a search engine that allows people to find out what their friends are doing on other websites.

Zillow.com shows the estimated value of people’s houses.

The Huffington Post Fundrace tool tracks people’s campaign contributions.

Jigsaw.com allows people to share business cards they’ve collected – a virtual social network for Rolodex information.

People have found dirt on their loved ones without even explicitly searching for it.

Doug Orlyk, from Bensenville, Ill., recently did a search on ZabaSearch.com to find the listing for his boyfriend’s address so that he could mail a card to him. What he found out instead was that the boyfriend had lied about his real age. It turned out that he was 43 years old, not 35 as he had claimed. “I thought, ‘You’re a liar! You’re older than I am!,’” Orlyk said. The relationship ended soon after.

Art Feagles, a tech professional at the Cate High School, a private school in Carpinteria, California, operates the computer system for the school’s alumni office. But his colleagues, who do fundraising for the school, keep asking him for another skill: researching potential donors on the internet.

In 2007 Mr. Feagles wanted to find out more about a potential donor by using the person’s address. So he used Google Earth’s aerial mapping tool to search for it and saw that the address was for a golf-course condominium. This information led him to believe that this was probably a second home, and therefore the person must be wealthy enough to make a good potential donor for the school.

Ray Chen, a cofounder of Spokeo.com, says he and his company don’t want to make it easier to stalk people. He says, “we’re just trying to make something that’s fun to use.”

Most people search sleuths start out by registering for a free account on one of the major social networks like Facebook.com or MySpace.com.

For people who find themselves targeted by nosey people, the bad news is: There is no guaranteed way to protect yourself from embarrassing personal information leaks.

However. you can avoid some trouble by going to the source of the leak. By keeping pieces of personal data from being made public in the first place. If you don’t want people to find your address online, make sure to keep your phone number and address unlisted.

If you don’t want people to find your Amazon wish list, Facebook or MySpace profiles or the pictures you have on Flickr, make sure to adjust your privacy settings on those sites accordingly.

Source: MarketWatch.com

According to a news report from the Times Online there is a new Facebook application that uses positioning technology to pinpoint a person’s location using information retrieved from cell phone communications.

The Social Network Integrated Friend Finder (SNIFF for short) is a software tool that can be used through Facebook or a cell phone to find the location of a friend or family member.

A US company called Useful Networks developed the Sniff application has said that only people who give their permission can be electronically traced by the service. The Sniff software can operate across all cell phone service providers. Sniff users can specify which people can and can not track them, or whether they are willing to be sniffed by any person on the network.

Sniff is the first Facebook tool that charges a premium to peoples’ cell phone bills. The biggest users are currently in Sweden, where wireless-connected members on Facbook have integrated the software into their profile pages.

“Sniffing” works with the same technology used by the law enforcement to track down criminals or missing persons by their cell phones. The phone sends a signal to nearby cell towers. Positioning technology then calculates the persons physical location by using a triangulation measurement.

People who are lost could also use the tool to find their own location by “sniffing” themselves through their cell phone number.

The service could also be used by employers to track workers who use a company’s cell phones as part of their jobs.

The technology could also be used by a spouse or family member to keep tabs on a husband, wife or kid.

The Sniff people finder tool is able to locate a person within a radius of about 650 feet, or 200 meters.

Source: Times Online

The Associated Press is reporting on a very unique missing persons story that had a happy ending thanks to an anonymous tip sent on MySpace.com.

Tiffany Rubin found her abducted son Kobe Lee after she received an anonymous tip through her MySpace page. Someone spotted her 7-year-old son along with her ex-boyfriend in South Korea and contacted her throught the popular social networking website.

Tiffany caught a flight to South Korea on Sunday. She then sneaked into her son’s school, found him in class, disguised him with a wig and sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy before she brought him home Wednesday.

She had been looking for her son since Aug. 21, after her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Salko took off with him after a visit.

At the time of the abduction, her boyfriend had joint custody of Kobe Lee, but was facing six months in jail for not paying child support.

After he ex disappeared with her son, Rubin feared that Salko, born in South Korea, had taken the boy out of the country.

Her fears were realized when she hacked into Salko’s e-mail account, where she found an e-mail he had sent to a friend saying he was flying to South Korea.

The FBI issued a warrant for Salko’s arrest, but Rubin didn’t get her lucky break until January.

She received a message on her MySpace page from a person who had seen her son and knew where he went to school.

Shortly after, she flew to South Korea with Miller and Bazzel Baz, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Association for the Recovery of Children, to find Kobe.

Rubin explained who she was to her son’s teacher and said she needed to speak with him. Then she walked out of the building with Kobe and took a cab to the American embassy.

The next day, Tiffany and Kobe returned home.

The FBI is currently working with South Korean authorities to have Salko arrested and extradited.

Source: Yahoo.com

UBFound.com is a free people search that allows users to post information about the person they are looking for to the website.

Your people search post on UBFound.com will then get submitted to the major search engines in the hope that the person you are looking for or someone they know will find your post and respond.

This is a very passive people search, and I wouldn’t rely on it as the only way to find a person, but it could be one more tool to consider when trying to find someone.

UBFound’s people search service is like a modern day message in a bottle. They broadcast your people search online through the major search engines like Google and Yahoo, hoping that the person you are looking for or someone who knows them finds you through a web search.

Using UBFound’s people search service along with other people finder tools, both online and offline, would definitely be the way to go when looking for someone.

You can visit UBFound’s site at UBFound.com.