Search and Prosper

Searching for people online is a common pastime, as is searching for your own name and seeing who else shares your vowels and consonant. I doubt that there isn't a single person reading this post who's searched for themselves online. And if you haven't, I'll patiently wait for you to go to a website like Spock.com and search for yourself.

Go on, I'll play some lovely elevator muzack until you get back.

....doot do doot da bum bum doot dooot dee...

Back? Found yourself? No? Then you aren't popular enough and need to spend more time online, and perhaps a little time getting to know the real you.


There is certainly more of an obsession with a person's online entity now than even 5 years ago. We're a people obsessed culture, as top searches have shown. Celebrities like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton have topped "most searched for" lists for a good 6 years now. While I'm not going to get into why people continue to waste time and internet tubing on those two slags, the point is that they are people and that seems to be the most important factor pushing us to use online searches.

Often the trouble is doing a search for a person and getting a lot of unrelated links. For example, if I do a search for my last name to see who else shares this suffixial bond I end up with several Italian sites using my name in their articles. Because in Italy my name has a totally different meaning, and is not really a last-name per se. However, with a people oriented search engine like Spock, it's much easier to whittle down those links into ones actually related to your search.

Spock also has a tag system, which other search engines seem to lack. These tags are added by Spock members or the people in question as well.

So, let's say for instance that you want to find, well, Spock. A search for him comes up with these results:


Oooo.

See those websites listed under each person? That's where that person can be found on the web, where they're mentioned or if they belong to a social networking site like Myspace or Facebook.

Looking at the more traditional search result page, you can see all the tags that are associated with that person. Those tags come in handy.

I know Leonard Nimoy is the most famous Vulcan of all, but really, he hogs the limelight. Oh Spock, all knowing search engine, who else is a Vulcan?



Huh, really, Horatius Cocles? I had no idea he had pointy ears. Well, you learn something new every day.

Spock.com could entertain me all day. I could keep going with this search for vulcans and bounce off onto another interesting tag when I feel like exploring the non sequitur realm of internet searching.

Go ahead, get lost in the tags of your ancestors and annoying relatives. Let me know if any of them are Vulcans. I'm sure at least one of them must be, right?