Mining social networks for sources and stories

Way back when, if you wanted to find out where someone worked and where they went to school, who their friends were, what their hobbies were and what kind of music they liked to listen to, you had to knock on a lot of doors, make numerous phone calls, dig through city directories, stitch together documents or sit them down for a long interview. Now people volunteer all of that and more on social networking sites such as MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Friendster and Bebo.

A social networking site is any site that attempts to make it easier for like-minded people to find each other. You typically share personal and professional details about yourself in online profiles, and link to and chat with others who share the same interests or the same circle of friends. There are countless such sites with millions of registered users.

If you think it's just teenagers, think again. There are at least three such sites for doctors, for example, and many more for patients. There are sites for political activists, music fans and people who like to bake. When I searched MySpace for Frankfort, KY, I found multiple pages for people who said they worked for state government. Even politicians now feel obligated to join.

Journalists are mining these sites for sources and stories. Virginia Tech students, for example, wrote about the massacre on LiveJournal and other sites, provoking a virtual feeding frenzy by reporters covering the story. Social networking sites have led to stories about a convicted sex offender from New York chatting up children online, Kentucky kids charged with burglary after sharing a video of a break-in and a Houston police officer who thought it humorous to share photos of dismembered women.

If you haven't already, someday soon you will want to find someone on one of these sites. Here are some ways to do that:

• Use the site's own search engine. Some sites, like MySpace, use Google as their search provider. Others have their own, home-grown tool. Policies vary from site to site, but typically you have the option of making your profile private, so only people you invite can look at it, or public, so anyone at all is welcome. You may not be able to join some sites and view profiles at all, unless you misrepresent yourself, because they're only for certain classes of people, such as students. Read the site's terms of use and consult the appropriate ethic's policy and your own moral compass before you act.

• Use Google or Yahoo's site search. Typing site:myspace .com "Alex Davis" Courier-Journal in Google or Yahoo's search box, for example, will search MySpace for any mentions of Alex Davis and the Courier-Journal. If you try this search, by the way, you'll learn that Alex once trolled MySpace looking for people to talk about a coffeehouse.

• Use a site devoted specifically to finding people on social networking sites. Here are some and how they describe themselves:
  • Wink

    Better than white pages, Wink free people search lets you find people at social networks like MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn & Friendster, and other online communities. Includes name search plus location, school, work, interests, and more.

  • yoName

    yoName turns your computer into a private detective. Look for anyone you want. You can even look them up by a username or an email address! If they're on any of the big-time networks like MySpace or Facebook, yoName will find them. Look up friends, family, ex-es. Look up yourself and see if someone's impersonating you. Or just have fun and look up celebrities, even if the first five entries for Paris Hilton are all "male, 39, single, in Madison, Wisconsin".

  • ProfileLinker

    ProfileLinker is an innovative web utility that allows you to link your social network profiles in one central location. You can also get message alerts from your favorite social networks, get updates on your friends, search for users across several networks, get your horoscope, weather, sports news and more.

  • UpScoop

    Import your email address book and discover which of your friends are on social networks…

  • Explode

    Explode is a social search tool that lets you find others online irrespective of which network they are on, as well as those running their own sites and blogs. It is a easy way to make connections, group these connections and interact with them either using your Explode profile or your own space somewhere else.

  • Streakr

    Discover, rate and share common interests with other communities around the world.

Pipl, a people search engine mentioned here a few days ago, also searches social networking sites.

The usual cautions apply: You can't assume anything you find is true, and you'll have to find verification elsewhere.

Also keep in mind that your snooping may not go unnoticed: If you search for an email address on yoName, for example, the site sends a message to that person telling them that they've been searched, although it doesn't say by who. There's also StalkerTrack, which helps MySpace users monitor people looking at their profiles. That doesn't mean they'll know your name or why you're looking at their page, but even when people write on Web pages accessible to anyone in the world, they persist in believing their words are somehow private.

Whether they remain so is up to you.