2 posts tagged “google”

So, NewCity, one of the alt.weeklies in Chicago, has a feature this week on the "Fame 150," the most famous people in the city. Their methodology? Google hits.

A sampling of results:

1 Oprah: 34,400,000
2 Kanye West: 5,300,000
3 R. Kelly: 4,390,000
4 Michael Jordan: 4,370,000
...
27 Jeremy Piven: 1,020,000
28 Jeff Tweedy:    997,000
...
43 Brian Urlacher: 535,000
44 Studs Terkel: 526,000
...
71 Richard M. Daley: 279,000
72 Charlie Trotter: 275,000
...
113 Christie Hefner: 103,000
114 Al Jourgensen: 101,000

Funny thing is, if you search for me, you get 32,000 results.* Which according to their numbers would put me at #146, right between authors Bill Zehme (34,900) and Haki Madhubuti (30,600). Searching for "me3dia" gives you 97,100 results, slotting me at #117, ahead of Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf.

So clearly, I'm one of the 150 most famous people in Chicago too! Bow down before my relative importance!

*Of course, not every one of those results is for me, but how many of #134 Liz Ryan's 134,000 results are actually for the founder of WorldWIT and not the no-doubt dozens of other Liz Ryans in Chicago? Do you think NewCity actually counted? For what it's worth, if you add "+ Chicago" to a search of my name (their method for narrowing results for common names like Liz's) you get 10,500 results, which would take me out of the running, but would also eliminate a lot of valid references, too. So whatever.

As discovered via Google Code Search:

(Inspired by waxy.org)