Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Ran Zilca. Ran is the CEO of NY-based Signal Patterns, a company that is helping people with real user discovery. Signal Patterns provides a set of social Web applications and widgets that categorize users by the use of surverys. The company is currently in private beta since June 2008 and you can check out additional reviews on RWW, Inq and Mash.

Signal Patterns has 4 senior scientists on staff to make sure that the matching process is as precise as possible. Currently they have a Facebook application, "Personality Patterns" which helps you find others like you and compare you to another person. What makes this application so interesting to me is that it offers true user discovery. It will find people across Facebook that match your survey, not just people already on your friends list.

They offer a personality test and a music test and plan to integrate into other social networks including hi5 and imeem. There are also widgets that can be embedded directly into a Web site to provide the matching service for any site.

Back in May we spoke with another survey company, Peanut Labs. The difference between the companies is Peanut Labs is providing surveys for companies looking for user feedback while Signal Patterns is providing surveys to help with user discovery.

The Personality Patterns Facebook application is live and you can use it today. If you would like a beta key for the Signal Patterns Web site, use this link. I am always impressed when companies are trying to help with real user discovery and aren't based on a popularity contest.

Here's a cute video about how the Signal Patterns service works: