If a tweet falls in the woods…

In a post-privacy world where information about ourselves is shared (and gathered) at astonishing speeds and quantities, how can we ensure that our online personalities are actually being appreciated by our intended audience of friends and family, and not just being used for advertising and surveillance purposes? Can we tell when we’re just talking to ourselves?

uLikeMe (on facebook) is a web app inspired by the recently-disclosed surveillance systems used by the NSA to keep track of special citizens.

It creates the possibility of an on-demand online presence by posting a screenshot of my computer, along with a webcam picture, to my facebook profile, when someone actually wants to know what I’m doing.

If this information is already available to the government, why not make it available to people I actually know?

This project is part of an ongoing series of web applications meant to explore different aspects of our technology-mediated interactions.