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