07 Jan

Beware the Googleganger!

written by Bob Hunt in Blog | 1 comment

 ‘The REAL Barry Williams?’

Barry Williams is one busy guy, busier than you’ve ever imagined.  He’s the founder and principal consultant of the London firm Database Answers Limited.  Surprised?  Then you might be further intrigued by the fact that Barry Williams is the executive officer of the Australian Skeptics, for whom he has edited the Skeptic Journal for the last 17 years.  Didn’t know that?  If so, you’re probably unaware that Barry Williams is known as a very funny after-dinner speaker throughout the United Kingdom.  And you most likely haven’t heard that Barry Williams is a successful taxidermist. While all of the above is true, none of it has anything to do with THE Barry Williams, aka The Real Greg Brady.  The aforementioned gentlemen are all Googlegangers. 

Yes, Googleganger, a term that just missed being elevated by the American Dialect Society as their 2007 Word of the Year (they went with “subprime” instead).  The term refers to the unsettling discovery of other people with your name when you Google yourself.  These posers are your virtual doppelgangers, hitherto unknown individuals running amok about the world with YOUR name.  The nerve.

For the record, I am not a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, nor am I a self-described “Virginia Home Boy,” nor am I a jazz musician, nor am I a director of the National Association of Realtors, nor am I the creator of the Pattern Trapper On-Line Trading Course.  But my Googlegangers are.

It’s a sobering thing to see your name co-opted by so many others.  Think I’ll take my mind off it by listening to my Barry Williams CD.  That’s THE Barry Williams, aka Johnny Bravo, not the Canadian musician and entertainer whom you may have Googled before.