Venus Petrov Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Kicking back on a cool, sunny autumn day (the leaves have only just started changing color), I thought I would google my avie name. I figured that there might be a couple of hits. But, OMG, in addition to the requisite references off SLF and my bio at on the club website, there were numerous references to other blogs and forums, flickr, snapzilla, Phoenix JIRA, two dead blogs, and some from a few years ago.Check out your avie name or names--does anything you see surprise you? Are there things you would expect to see that you do not see?When you see all that is 'out there' on your avatar, does this make you think any differently about your approach to information sharing using your real name? Use of FB, Twitter, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mirage Cyberstar Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 I was stunned a few weeks ago when someone I'd just met in world told me that he'd Googled my av name. When I did the same, I saw there was far more available about my avatar on Google than my RL information! Everything I've done on the web to support things I've done in SL is available. I don't find that it changed my approach to my RL information- as clearly, I've been far more careful with it than my avatar! What it brought to mind was that the ability to reinvent and redirect one's SLife with leaving or joining groups, changing appearance or reworking a profile doesn't bring as much of a fresh start as it seems- just like in real life, our identity remains constant in some respects, and we do have history! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 I'm a total internet wh*re, so the results of Googling my name come as no surprise at all. Wheeee! I wouldn't recommend it for anyone else though (Googling my name that is, unless you're prepared for the tsunami of returns. Candy Tetris! I think it is an excellent idea to Google your own, not just for fun, but for the equivalent of the virtual version of checking your credit report a couple times a year.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 p.s. Y'all know about setting up Google Alerts on your own name, yes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 LeeHere Absent wrote: p.s. Y'all know about setting up Google Alerts on your own name, yes? Oh go ahead and tell me us, Lee. We are all attention hos of one ilk or another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caitlin Tobias Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Oh, I love to google! And yeah, I am vain enough to google my SL name - Caitlin Tobias My own blog always comes up first, then a lot of posts and comments on various fora and other blogs. However my sl-name is apparently also a common rl-name, there are a lot of Real Caitlin Tobiasses on facebook! Whoa! Oh, and it is a popular dogname...I found some adorable Spaniels. Ahem. Maybe it is easier if your name is not so ' reallife-like'? I tried with some forumposters, just for the heck of it. Ceka for instance, gives up pages and pages of SL related fora-posts and flickr. Mayalily too, although I had a giggle that her first hits were about activities of an adult nature, which surprised me (i cant remember those posts, then again, I miss a lot lately!) I use google.nl, would it make a different in searchresults per country? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caitlin Tobias Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 LeeHere Absent wrote: p.s. Y'all know about setting up Google Alerts on your own name, yes? I have google alerts on all my names....it's still beta though, and not always a success. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Re: Maya's name. The 'spay' questions followed by a reference to a BabyCenter. Whoa. I will have to check those dates again. That might be bass-akwards. ETA: It sucks when you do not have a surname. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Yeah, I hear ya. Basically you set up a Google Alert, and you can do it for any keword search, but in this case you set it up for your SL resident name, like for me it would be "LeeHere Absent" and then when the Googlebots go out and do their thing, they send you an alert if that keyword, in this case my name, is posted somewhere on the internet. Most of the time, 'cuz I'm so prolific, it comes back with returns on my own stuff, but every once in awhile, I'll get a notification that I have been mentioned on someone's blog or in a forum thread or something, which is handy, because there have been times when I was unaware and someone posted something lovely or a link to my blogs or somesuch and because of Google Alerts I was able to thank them for it. http://www.google.com/alerts Here's how Google explains it: "You can also click here to manage your alerts" Monitor the Web for interesting new content Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Enter the topic you wish to monitor, then click preview to see the type of results you'll receive. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include: monitoring a developing news story keeping current on a competitor or industry getting the latest on a celebrity or event keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colleen Criss Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 I'm google famous , but don't google me please . Well you can but ...don't flip over to look at photos! :smileysurprised: and apparently there is also a human in the world that shares my avatar name. Interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 Ohh cool. Thank you Lee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Here is an example of what the Alert looks like when you get the message: Google Alerts googlealerts-noreply@google.com to me Lee, Here in a Virtual World: SLUnleashedLeeHere Absent blogs about the virtual world. ... Posted by LeeHere Absent at 1 11 PM · Email This BlogThis! Share to ... LeeHere Absent said... Orfeu recently ... leeherevw.blogspot.com/2011/09/slunleashed.html Lee, Here in a Virtual World: FAO: ImaLeeHere Absent blogs about the virtual world. Thursday, September 1, 2011. FAO: Ima. This. Posted by LeeHere Absent at 11:10 PM · Email This BlogThis! ... leeherevw.blogspot.com/2011/09/fao-ima.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Venus Petrov wrote: Ohh cool. Thank you Lee. You're welcome. My pleasure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claireschen Hesten Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 i only managed to find two pages of search results for my avi this was on Yahoo i never ever use google search apart from the SL site Xstreet forums/Xstreet the old SL forum and a couple of sites i expected to find myself on the thing that surprised me most was a now dollarbie item of mine (which has been a dollarbie quite some time) coming up as what i can only guess as a show in search result on the SL site for an animations sim a little look down the items found here list showed the item at a price of L$10 which is what it would have originally been i did bring myself to check google there were a few more pages of results most of which i expected i did notice my about me appeared on more than just inworld/online profile but that was the worst of it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Caitlin Tobias wrote: Oh, I love to google! And yeah, I am vain enough to google my SL name - Caitlin Tobias My own blog always comes up first, then a lot of posts and comments on various fora and other blogs. However my sl-name is apparently also a common rl-name, there are a lot of Real Caitlin Tobiasses on facebook! Whoa! Oh, and it is a popular dogname...I found some adorable Spaniels. Ahem. Maybe it is easier if your name is not so ' reallife-like'? I tried with some forumposters, just for the heck of it. Ceka for instance, gives up pages and pages of SL related fora-posts and flickr. Mayalily too, although I had a giggle that her first hits were about activities of an adult nature, which surprised me (i cant remember those posts, then again, I miss a lot lately!) I use google.nl, would it make a different in searchresults per country? Seriously? People have been naming Spaniels Caitlin Tobias? Ya know I'm gonna have to Google you now, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 colleen Criss wrote: I'm google famous , but don't google me please . Well you can but ...don't flip over to look at photos! :smileysurprised: and apparently there is also a human in the world that shares my avatar name. Interesting. Heh. I've seen your pics, you naughty girl you. p.s. Aprops of absolutely nothing other than Colleens pics...she's really into shadows. Go on, ask her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caitlin Tobias Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 LeeHere Absent wrote: Caitlin Tobias wrote: Oh, I love to google! And yeah, I am vain enough to google my SL name - Caitlin Tobias My own blog always comes up first, then a lot of posts and comments on various fora and other blogs. However my sl-name is apparently also a common rl-name, there are a lot of Real Caitlin Tobiasses on facebook! Whoa! Oh, and it is a popular dogname...I found some adorable Spaniels. Ahem. Maybe it is easier if your name is not so ' reallife-like'? I tried with some forumposters, just for the heck of it. Ceka for instance, gives up pages and pages of SL related fora-posts and flickr. Mayalily too, although I had a giggle that her first hits were about activities of an adult nature, which surprised me (i cant remember those posts, then again, I miss a lot lately!) I use google.nl, would it make a different in searchresults per country? Seriously? People have been naming Spaniels Caitlin Tobias? Ya know I'm gonna have to Google you now, right? LOL, ya nut. No, not Caitlin Tobias...but a couple of nice doggies named Cait or Caity came up when I googled my full name. Go on, google me! I love attention! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colleen Criss Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Ok I confess , when I was finally able to get shadows I was excited and probably bored everyone to death with it! :matte-motes-bashful-cute: And just as an aside so there is no confusion, the human that shares my avatar name is NOT who I am offline so please lets leave her in peace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceka Cianci Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 i'm not google famous..i had looked a few weeks ago and i think only like 10 pages popped up with my name ..and out of those maybe 2 or 3 if that may have added up about me.. i'm actually glad about that hehehe i was thinking it would have been worse.. after 5 years in sl thats all there is ..i'm fortunate lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Caitlin Tobias wrote: LeeHere Absent wrote: Caitlin Tobias wrote: Oh, I love to google! And yeah, I am vain enough to google my SL name - Caitlin Tobias My own blog always comes up first, then a lot of posts and comments on various fora and other blogs. However my sl-name is apparently also a common rl-name, there are a lot of Real Caitlin Tobiasses on facebook! Whoa! Oh, and it is a popular dogname...I found some adorable Spaniels. Ahem. Maybe it is easier if your name is not so ' reallife-like'? I tried with some forumposters, just for the heck of it. Ceka for instance, gives up pages and pages of SL related fora-posts and flickr. Mayalily too, although I had a giggle that her first hits were about activities of an adult nature, which surprised me (i cant remember those posts, then again, I miss a lot lately!) I use google.nl, would it make a different in searchresults per country? Seriously? People have been naming Spaniels Caitlin Tobias? Ya know I'm gonna have to Google you now, right? LOL, ya nut. No, not Caitlin Tobias...but a couple of nice doggies named Cait or Caity came up when I googled my full name. Go on, google me! I love attention! re the doggies: Aw, how cute. re Googling you: Oh, it's on, girlfriend! Imma gonna dig me up some dirt! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 colleen Criss wrote: Ok I confess , when I was finally able to get shadows I was excited and probably bored everyone to death with it! :matte-motes-bashful-cute: And just as an aside so there is no confusion, the human that shares my avatar name is NOT who I am offline so please lets leave her in peace. No, no, no. It was cute. I appreciated your enthusiasm. You know I just like to tease you. I kid because I care. p.s. That's a good point and nice of you to say regarding your namesake sharer. I'm sure that kind of thing gets a bit dicey on occasion when people do get to Googling and forget about the possibilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 I think it is worth mentioning that there are lot of tricks and backdoors and whatnot to search engines. I see people sometimes post a RL pic associated with their forum name or SL resident name, for one example, and then think better of it and delete it, either forgetting or not being aware that there are caches and "this day in time" snapshots out there. Not to mention people who screenshot and save stuff. Just a little something to think about. Could be no big deal at all ever, but it's a good thing to at least be aware of and proceed accordingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo Yardley Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Unfortunately people have my avatar name in RL as well so not all links relate to me. On the other hand I am a little bit famous with my RL so that gets me plenty of hits to get a big grin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeHere Absent Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 I'm wearing your t-shirt today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venus Petrov Posted October 16, 2011 Author Share Posted October 16, 2011 That is an excellent point Lee. I do wonder about some people who stick a RL photo in their profile and it is RL, alright, just someone else's RL. There are search engines that will match images. People get curious and start poking about and soon they have the RL name of ..someone...might be you might be someone else. The safe (or stupid) ones are those that put RL photos of minor celebrities in as their RL photo. I saw someone outted on that not long ago. Oops! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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