Knowledge Management Weblog
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
What's Your Google Number?
What's Your Google Number?
Valdis Krebs describes the use of Google to provide a fame index. The total number of results returned by Google search on your name provides a simple measure of the 'buzz' that exists around you. Tune your search string to minimise false positives and catch all forms of your name and go.
At this moment, I am incrementing Valdis Krebs' "Google number" by one.
Google is already in widespread use as a way of gathering background information about people. Online, each social incident relating to you in some way leaves a small mark. Together, these marks form an image of you that can be viewed from as many angles as there are viewings. Our identities have always lived outside our bodies; in the imaginations, shared or otherwise, of those who know or know of us. The Internet simply puffs a cloud of vapour that begins to make the collectively projected image visible. This image begins to constitute an extension of your body in the same way as clothes, hairstyle, car and house do. Unlike the physical body and extensions, each moment in the life of this virtual body is captured and made visible to all online. The human body is transcending space and time. Human civilisation is becoming more self-aware.
posted by Dan Randow 3:03 PM permanent link
