The sheer power of this resource has spawned a number of new behaviours, namely the vanity search, where the user looks up his/her name to see how many references are out there. Obviously, the more the merrier.
Self-centred? Sure. Arrogant? You betcha. But it's a heck of a lot of fun to read the zeitgeist surrounding your own name. In my case, a unique name (thanks, Mom and Dad) ensures most returns are actually about me.
As of today, the search for "Carmi Levy" returns 767 hits, about double what I was running around New Year's. Such a thrill.
A few things I've discovered about myself since I started getting introspective with my favorite search engine:
- The City of Carmi, Illinois is an absolutely lovely little burg, with an absolutely perfect name.
- The National Archives of Canada have started storing my columns.
- Someone named Dawson Winchester in a St. Thomas, Ontario paper quoted almost an entire column of mine without requesting advance permission. He seems like a very nice person, but someone please tell him his e-mail address is inavlid, and has been for the past six months.
- The Canadian military logged a couple of my pieces in their daily scans of the web (uh oh, now they know where I live!)
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