ON EGO GOOGLING FOR REAL

UP IN LIGHTS

David Pogue of the New York Times has the low-down on a new form of "ego Googling", as seen below. 

As he describes it:

"You know the classic Google logo? Those colorful letters in that distinctive font?

Now the power of Google, or at least its logo, can be yours.

Go here and type in your own name. You’ll see. It gives “ego Googling” a whole new meaning."

It is a cool diversion for a few minutes.

But it does point to a possible, real-world, real-money opportunity for the big search companies like Google, Yahoo! etc. 

Why not offer vanity, sponsored search results on a person's name, that would either show up at the first result with the sponsored color tag on Yahoo!, or in the case of Google, the first paid-search ad on the top right sponsored results column.

They'd need to make it really easy to do, and relatively inexpensive (say $5 per name), and good only upon correct identity validation.  Not to mention explaining the benefits in a mainstream manner.

But there could be a big enough market opportunity for it.  I'm often asked by friends and family who would definitely qualify as mainstream consumers, about how they would go about getting their name to pop up first on a search engine search.  And I lose most of them by the time I say "Optimization" in "Search Engine Optimization", or SEO...never mind how they would go about doing it for themselves.

I mean if the DMVs around the country can make hundreds of millions of dollars selling vanity license plates, why shouldn't Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft or AOL (Time Warner)?

DISCLOSURE:  I'm a shareholder in the above-mentioned companies.

Comments

[Yaser Anwar]

Appeal to vanity, interesting.

I think the more personalization the engines can offer, the better. Another possible way could also be: When Google (or any other SE for the matter) displays results, in the tab bar instead of the keyword being searched for, XYZ - Google Search' there could be Yaser's results for XYZ.'

For users that creates a feeling of self-belonging, as they can sort of relate to it with their name on it.

Just a thought.

[G]

This is not new, lot of sites offer this kinda thing. See below for one example

http://pimpmysearch.com/

[Cole kirk]

Another possible way could also be :
http://www.qqak.info/GOOGLING.html
Google displays this.

[Calo Bob]

I think the more personalization the engines can offer, the better. Another possible way could also be: When Google (or any other SE for the matter) displays results, in the tab bar instead of the keyword being searched for, XYZ - Google Search' there could be Yaser's results for XYZ.'

http://zzui.info/sitemap.htm