Vanity Search

My first assignment in Web 2.0 is to conduct a vanity search on myself.  Basically you type your name into a search engine and see what information there is on the web about yourself.  According to techcrunch.com,  "47% of American adult internet users have undertaken a vanity search in Google or another search engine."  And I am now GUILTY!

Well, I can't remember the last time I googled myself but apparently between then and now there are several more Shannon Deckers on the web.  Anyone else with the same name as a fitness model?  No, just me? Lovely. I scrolled through 5 pages on google without finding anything about myself. However, I did learn an awful lot about this rock-star fitness model.  She's quite successful. So, along with my name, I decided to add "teacher" to my search.  Once I did that my LinkedIn was there on the first page. I then searched "Shannon Decker" library and my facebook and school newsletter both came up in the search.  Still no images or videos because I don't really have much that is public on the web. I was surprised to see that my WIX.com page didn't show up in my search since it contains both my full name and resume.  

Overall, I didn't find anything surprising about myself.  I honestly haven't put a lot out there and I think I've been fairly cautious about what I put on the web.  Not because I have anything to hide but because you just never know where the information could end up.

I believe this would make a great assignment for the students on my campus to show them how everything they put online can be seen by anyone.