My bot is called @mynewwebpage. It tweets every time I visit a new website. You can get your own “creepy” bot by going to edgeofinternet.us. (“creepy” according to my girlfriend’s coworkers).
Its bio: Trying to find the edge of the internet. Twitter feed logging every domain I visit.
Process
I had been thinking of ways to track the tabs I have open at any moment for a while. I was thinking of creating a website that would publish every website I was looking at at any moment. Then this assignment came along, and I decided to implement the tracking software (it’s a Chrome extension), but have its output go to a Twitter account.
I wasn’t sure how to reduce this feed of information into something interesting. With David Newbury and Golan’s ideas, I decided to only tweet if a website I was visiting was one I had never visited before. I expect that eventually the new sites I visit will reduce to a slower, steady pace. I’m curious to see this stable-state and be able to compare different people’s stable states.
The bot has surprised me by showing how many new sites I visit. I didn’t expect to be visiting new sites every few minutes a week and a half after implementing. The drop-off in new visits has not been steep or exponential. Instead it looks like a gradual slope.
I have had very strong reactions to the bot. I created the bot as a service—anyone can set this up for themselves using my system. I thought I would be able to get someone else to do this with me as an exercise in self-discovery. No one has wanted to divulge their browsing patterns. They think it’s too creepy and personal. I didn’t expect this reaction.
Taxonomy
This bot is clearly a feed-based bot. It publishes a running list of sites I visit. It doesn’t communicate or respond in any way.
Screen shots
Latest websites Visited:
First websites visited:
Random moment in time
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