UP IN LIGHTS
David Pogue of the New York Times has the low-down on a new form of "ego Googling", as seen below.
"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.
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.
Posted by: Yaser Anwar | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 05:20 AM
This is not new, lot of sites offer this kinda thing. See below for one example
http://pimpmysearch.com/
Posted by: G | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 03:54 PM
Another possible way could also be :
http://www.qqak.info/GOOGLING.html
Google displays this.
Posted by: Cole kirk | Monday, October 09, 2006 at 06:21 AM
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
Posted by: Calo Bob | Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 05:37 AM