But if they were chosen to come to Mauritius, why had they also been chosen to fail, and leave? Is that a choosing, or is it a passing-over? Are they Elect, or are they Preterite, and doomed as dodoes?
– Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (1978)
So, here’s my question. Next time you’re on a bus, or stuck in traffic, or on a subway, or even at a baseball game, look around you and ask yourself: How many of these people are Google-visible? In other words, if I asked the guy in front of me his name, or the woman beside me at the ball game her name, would I have any luck finding them in Google?
I don’t, however, mean merely pulling up their address or phone number in a white pages search. I mean literally finding them, in some semblance of the same way that when you look up me you find me (okay, a lot of me), or when you look up Barry Ritholtz you find even more of him. That sort of thing, and I don’t mean just pundits, but everyone and anyone.
I got thinking about it the other day when someone asked me for contact information. I said, “Just Google me,” feeling somewhat slack-jaw baffled that in 2005 anyone would ask the question. After all, pretty much anyone I’m ever looking for these days is someone I can Google. And when I can’t Google them right away I literally freeze for a moment, thinking-thinking, how do I find these darn off-the-grid people? (Ah, phone books!)
Anyway, my testable hypothesis is that most people aren’t Google-able. Perhaps one out of three is, or maybe more like one out of five. Either way, it would be interesting to check. Over the next few days as I travel around I’ll ask random strangers in airports and hotels for their name and see whether they are visible in Google, and then I’ll report back here. Yeah, I know, it’s a biased sample, but I’m curious.
Just to be clear, I’m not making a normative statement here. I’m not saying that people who aren’t Google-visible are somehow bad folks. I just have this sense that I’m traveling in a bubble with an inordinate number of people who seemingly feel that there is a causal relationship between being (highly) Google-visible and being happy/successful/something.
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If I Google you, would I find you?
Paul is doing a little sociology/Internet experiment while he’s traveling–Infectious Greed- Google & Invisible People- A Question–essentially to randomly ask people …
If I Google you, would I find you?
Paul is doing a little sociology/Internet experiment while he’s traveling–Infectious Greed- Google & Invisible People- A Question–essentially to randomly ask people …
Don’t forget the seemingly-large group who are Google-able, but only by an alias. I can understand why some people might want to avoid using their full and correct name, but it seems like it’s far more common to do that than for folks like myself, who see no need.
Also there is a subset with names that are too popular for one individual to be easily parsed out from a google search. If a “John Smith” for example said, “Just google me” it could take some time to actually come up with a relevant hit.
One place that stores a lot of personal information is the Federal Election Commission. One of the best places to access this data is at one of the replicators of the data like fecinfo.com. Anyone who has given over $200 to any federal candidate since 1980 will have their home address, job title, and company recorded on the site. And since data goes back to 1980, you can see where someone used to live and used to work. Some people use their business addresses, but many use their home addresses: Gwyneth Paltrow’s home address in NYC is in there, as is the unlisted home address of the Pfizer CEO. Of course, you can also see the political affiliation of the donor, since you’ll know whom the donor gave money to…
You can even search by employer of by zip code. You may think this is a violation of privacy, but John McCain doesn’t think so.
…and then there are those that have gone out of their way to remain anonymous…i have been on ‘the grid’ since 1990…used to ask people if they HAD an email address…most responded with ‘Huh?’
Wow, I never really thought of googling myself, but I was surprised to see me in there. But with a last name like mine right? Well funny thing is that I found a corelation with the name and googling. If you have a plain name like Steve Davis, good luck, unless you are Bill Gates. Anyway I do agree that most people are not googlable. I sit in Hard Rock Cafe in Destin at the bar right now righting this after googling a few strangers, surprisingly none were googlable!
Peace
Abe
RE: “I got thinking about it the other day when someone asked me for contact information. I said, “Just Google me,” feeling somewhat slack-jaw baffled that in 2005 anyone would ask the question.”
When people ask me for contact information–and assuming it someone I want to be in contact with–I use another kind of technology. I call it a business card. There is also a variant that gets occasionally used, called a .vcf card.
Telling someone to “just Google me” says “I can’t be bothered to exert myself in the slightest for you–why don’t YOU go off and work to find it.” That is just gameplaying. Personally, if someone told me that, my response would be an unprintable variant of “why bother?”.
Call me old-fashioned, but successful relationship builders usually are a bit old-fashioned.
Having googled people at random along the lines you describe, I’d venture to say the percent of Googleable folks is less than 2%…however, this is very anecdotal and unscientific, consisting of googling a stack of business cards following a trip to a conference.
I’d be curious if anyone has more concrete numbers on this…
good post.
I’m with the Kman.
WOOOOW, Paul. “just Google me” is quite the statement.
I’ve gone the other way. I’ve made a point of remaining invisible (this blog the exception). I lost some political points at a former firm because I wouldn’t permit my photo or name on the corp website.
Thank you for blowing my mind, Paul.
The killer is that a name is a terrible way to find someone’s identity on the web. There are many, many George Collins’ (me) on the web. If you type in my phone number you get exactly me. Or if you type in my name into a professional index related to my profession, you get exactly me. So for most people a name will never be enough.
People have an older memory of the web where everything was easily found. I work with a fellow who password protects a site of photos because he worries that a stranger will find it. I told him that if you don’t know the url there is probably no way to find it, which he doubted. We tried a variety of search engines and programs and a variety of key words and we never could get a link.
People imagine that whatever is available on the web can be found by search engines. But that is no longer true because there is too much content to index.
It’s certainly disturbing to be Googled, especially when other people post up pics and info of you to be Googled. I wonder if “Eraser” services exist?
Paul,
Now, my dirty little secret is out: I sold my mortal Soul to Sergey & Larry years ago for a high Google score.
Eternal damnation: a small price to pay for a good Google rank!
There is a certain subset of self-important technologists who believe that they are too important to bother with social niceties. Your comment “… just Google me …” suggests that you might be one of those.
I recall certain “Distinguished Engineers” at Sun Microsystems whose outgoing voicemail messages said, curtly, “Do NOT leave messages for me here. I will NOT check them, and I will NOT reply to them.” There were others who gave the same message but with a bit of humanity, saying, “I am on email virtually every waking hour, but I only get a chance to check voicemail once or twice a day. You’ll get a response much more quickly if you email me than leave a message here.” The latter group at least sounded like they gave a damn about communicating with the world outside their overblown heads.
I’m sorry, but telling someone “just Google me” is tantamount to telling them “go fsck yourself.”