Your Google Birthday
People who write weblogs invent games that they play with Google. I've seen a couple of them:
- Owning Your First Name
- Search Google with your first name and make sure your home page shows up as the first result.
- Your Google Number
- Search Google with your quoted full name and count the number of hits.
Here's another game to keep you occupied during the holidays:
- Your Google Birthday
- The date your name first appeared on The Internet.
To play it, go to Google Groups, select "Advanced Search", type in your full name in quotes, select a date range, and click on "Google Search". (You probably will see thousands of messages that you foolishly posted to USENET newsgroups with your real name when you are young and naive.)
Now push the end date further and further back until there is only one message showing. That date, my friend, was the date when your name was irrevocably linked with The Internet. It is your Google Birthday! Mine is Oct. 12, 1989:
