Wolfram Alpha Facebook App Distills Wealth of Your Personal Data

03.09.2012
Answer engine Wolfram Alpha can figure out anything that can be computed -- such as the distance between Earth and Mars on Valentine's Day this year. Now, if you're a Facebook user, you can use the online tool to glean a wealth of information about yourself.

It will dig into your Facebook account and tell you things such as when and where you were born and even what the weather was like then, a timeline of the kinds of things you post, as well as the times and days of week that you most often post links, upload photos or update your status.

Some of the responses might surprise you.

While I consider myself a light Facebook user, Wolfram Alpha says that since Sept. 25, 2010, I've made 202 posts with an average length of 21.09 words, "liked" 195 things and made 260 comments. The app also tells you which posts generated the most "likes" and comments.

If there's a specific data set you're particularly interested in, you can drill down to get more detail or different charts. You can even load Facebook reports on your friends, although when I tried it the app only displayed top-level information such as frequency and timing of postings, but not which people interacted most with the friend in question.

And if you find a certain chart or piece of information particularly interesting, you can download it or share it on social networks, although if you do the latter on Facebook, for example, the app only shares a link to Wolfram Alpha, where people need to go to see your data. There, of course, they can sign up for their own Facebook report and thereby sign up for a Wolfram Alpha account.