How’s Your Online Visibility?

Everyone who’s spent any amount of their spare time on the Internet has run a Google search on their name. My first result is:

www.davidyoungmusic.com

Yep, this guy can play two recorders — at the same time. I’ve no idea how, but perhaps a passage from his homepage can give us a clue:

“[David Young's music] offers you an invitation to take a journey to the deepest, most precious place inside yourself. These melodies fill you with gentle, relaxing peace and healing energy while drawing you inward and upward, like a soft relaxing breeze.”

Relaxing breeze? Deep inside yourself? I’m not sure I like where this is going…

In related news (and here’s the point of this post), social networking blog Mashable last month posted a road test of six new “people search” engines:

6 People Search Engines Tested: Can They Find Me?

People search is a hot new area, particularly with start-ups, as social networking becomes increasingly mainstream with the exponential growth of sites like Facebook and MySpace (not to mention the dozens of other niche networking sites). With more and more of these sites available — and with the potential rewards of using them for business — any search engine which enables you to find your friends and colleagues fast is undoubtedly going to be in demand.

People search is also, apparently, several steps beyond the simplistic world of “find yourself on Google”; whereas Google trawls the entire Intarweb, these search engines are specialized, and many use data from the big social networking sites, as well as other, more business-oriented networking sites, such as LinkedIn.

But could I find myself on any of the sites tested at Mashable? Not a chance! Peekyou, Wink, Spock and yoName all drew a blank on my name, even when I filled in extra details… Like age, location, hobbies, where I was on July 24th 2004… Talk about a let-down. So maybe my online presence needs a boost? Nah, I’m happy being mistaken for a guy who can play two recorders simultaneously.