Monday Meme: Google

I always find Strawberry's information gathering memes fun, and she invited us to do her Google Meme as well as the recent meme on SLTimeWasted - a Digital Footprint Meme. Part of the trick is to open up a search window as unaffected by your browsing history as you can - which can either be through a browser you rarely use, or in "Incognito Mode" in Chrome.

1. Google your Second Life name in “quotations” and share your results. About 7,750 results (Compared to just Deoridhe which is about 25,700 results)


2. What is the first link that comes up? The link to the main page of my blog, followed by my Plurk, my Second Life Profile, and a profile of me done by SL Blogger Support this year. (My facebook comes up for Deoridhe.)


3. Which link were you surprised to see? I'm apparently being completely reposted on another blogspot blog, but they didn't edit the posts to take out my SL name; idiots. (No real surprises on Deoridhe; there had been a guy who used a poem of mine in his sig for years, but it looks like his posts have moved out of the aggregate.)


4. Click on the “Image” tab and tell us where the first 5 pictures listed are from. They are all from me through various sources of mine, which is sort of reassuring. (For Deoridhe, four are form me and one is of the hair named after me from Discord Designs.)


5. Click on the “more” tab and then click “news” and share your results. "Your search - "deoridhe quandry" / deoridhe - did not match any news results."

For the purposes of comparing my digital footprint, I'm going to use my full legal name but just Deoridhe, since my Deoridhe footprint is significantly larger and older than Deoridhe Quandry.

• How did the two digital footprints compare, and did that surprise you? My Deoridhe footprint is a lot larger than my Legal Name footprint, and that doesn't surprise me at all. What did surprise me is that my legal name footprint is also smaller than my Deoridhe Quandry footprint - and that's taking into account there are people in the world who share my legal name. I try to track how I stand in terms of my legal name in search engines as a matter of safety, though, and have grown fond of the other mes across the 'net, even if we'll likely never meet.


• Does anyone interesting share your name? Both Deoridhe and Deoridhe Quandry are completely unique to me, still, which is a bit incredible but also very fun. I have one person who shares my legal name who has a very large footprint (she dominates the rest of us) and since she's a feminist and into social justice, I think she's really awesome. Now and then someone will contact me on Facebook thinking I'm her. It's an interesting contrast, especially given how Facebook and Google+ view identity; I am far more easily identified, and far more unique, under Deoridhe than under my legal name, but very few people would think Deoridhe is a "real name".


• Are you happy with the size of your digital footprint, or do you wish either one was larger/smaller?  I'm very pleased. Since I got online I've tried to keep my legal name footprint miniscule while expressing myself on Deoridhe. 


• If you woke up/ logged in one morning to discover over night you had suddenly gained rock-star status, and everybody knew who you were and wanted to know what you were doing… what would you do?  I'd freak out. Under either identity, I'm not a very public person and on a basic level I fear what could and would be said about me if I became too well know. The world in general is not a kind place, and there are people who really enjoy insulting and harassing people online, so being front and center for that kind of treatment sounds like the opposite of fun. 

( More pictures here. / Click on Images for Credits )