Lazycoder

On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog

What’s the one thing that all of these social networking services like Facebook and MySpace have that the general internet doesn’t? Discoverability. By joining Facebook and MySpace I’ve been able to re-connect with a few friends from high school and college that aren’t important enough, according to Google, to show up in a Google search. One of whom is an Emmy winning graphic designer. On both a personal and a professional level I’m happy to have him in my Facebook friends list.

That’s the real problem with using Google as a discovery tool. PageRank. Let’s say I went to school with Jeff Atwood, not the writer of CodingHorror.com. Now how do I find him using Google given the PageRank juggernaut that is codinghorror.com? It’s even worse for poor Scott Koon. He’s the director of IT for the Mayo clinic, but you wouldn’t know it looking at Google. He doesn’t show up until the second page or so.

But Google is just a symptom, the real problem with the internet is there isn’t any real sense of identity. Claiming your identity on the internet is a little like playing a game of slapjack.