Pre P.S: I sincerely hope dad does not read the second paragraph!
Does Anonymous You Online sound like an oxymoron??!? Well, its a rule that anyone getting online is not anonymous. For example a search for me renders around 9000 results online. That’s quite a lot about me online for everyone to see and read about and know me better worse. I am sure reverse engineering me can let someone know more about me than I do! This is something very related to the concept of “Reputation Management“.
I recently met a nice sweet girl from a college in my place. She was smart, very active, speaks impeccable English, can sew and even bake a cake! Who can do all that these days!?!? Unfortunately, I guess I was giving her the wrong ideas and she ended up thinking that I was hitting on her! (which I honestly was not trying!) and she is now on a “ignore” mode with me! Ah well, guess the unconference attitude does not go well with everyone ๐
But being the geek nerd tech junkie that I am, I search for her on google and guess what I end up finding? I see her full home address and her university results! Now, I would not bother doing anything with this information, but if it ends up with some jobless stalker, you can imagine the hell she would have to go through!!
So, what exactly can you do about this?
Search for your name on google today, check up on what results it brings up and if something which makes you uncomfortable shows up….you got some serious work to do!!
First signup for the major social networks that display your profile to the search engines. The first choices would be
- Twitter – See this a “Let the world know what are you upto now” status updates like that on Orkut/Facebook
- BlogSpot – Blogging! In case you have no idea what blogging is, just create a new empty blog. That will do.
- LinkedIn – A professional social network, will help you in the future, if you are still in college
- Last.FM – Music service! Social music and discover new types of music easy.
- Flickr – The photo sharing site from Yahoo!
- StumbleUpon – Something to seriously consider if you spent a lot of time online and have nothing to do. Works with a toolbar with two options – I like, I don’t like. Great time killer!
- Facebook – The busy social network where “just keep in touch” takes a back seat
Signup to these sites and get all the unwanted information off from the first page of Google. But hey, am I not tell you more ways to be seen online?
Yes I am, but it makes sense to show off an empty blog, or a music profile than let people see that drunken dance video you took a few years back at your friends party, Doesn’t it?!?!? Ponder away! So, what does a search on you reveal?
Does this make sense to you? Please share your views!!!
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