What You Look Like to a Social Network

This infographic presents the categories of information that social networks can make available to other applications. You authorize these applications by, say, logging in to a Web site with your Twitter account, or by playing Farmville on Facebook. The applications, in turn, often give data about your activities back to the social network. These exchanges of information take place through what’s known as an application programming interface, or an A.P.I. Read more here. (To use the infographic, click to zoom in and see specific fields; click on the black bar to zoom back out.)