OK, this is weird. So I was in the Mercury News today and my first girlfriend from back at Prospect High School says she read that, wondered if I was the guy she hung around in High School, Googled me, confirmed that I was the Robert Scoble she remembered, and wrote me.
I haven’t seen her since 1983.
Even better, she’s director of marketing at a tech company.
Thanks to Mike Cassidy and Google. What a weird world we live in.
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Robert Scoble works at Fast Company.TV (title: Managing Director). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
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December 12th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Intersting. She finds you by accident, yet I have looked for “Katie Kerr” for years. Haven’t found her. She was a Navy Corpsperson in San Diago in 1980-81. We were friends, and I’ve always wondered what happened to her - and where her life took her. Let’s see if your blog helps!
Rob
December 12th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Yeah, she was the girl I took to the Prom. I always wondered what happened to her. Here’s hoping you find Katie.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
[...] Link to First girlfriend finds me through Google « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger Stumble it! [...]
December 12th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
Robert, I’d like to bring to your attention a podcast from Economist.com on Web 2.0, entitled “World In 2007: Web 2.0’s effect on society“. It was released late last month, 27 Nov to be specific. The podcast is a discussion with Andreas Kluth, who’s a technology correspondent for The Economist.
He’s got some interesting views on whether Web 2.0 is a bubble, and if it is, whether it’s something for the general population to be concerned about.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Hey Robert,
How did Maryam react?
December 13th, 2006 at 12:17 am
Yoav: she said that she’s too late and she can’t have me back. :-)
Not that would be an option anyway cause she’s engaged, she wrote me in an email.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Robert - actually - help me out here - I would really like to find Katie. I have no clue what her interests have been over the last 25 years. We shared a Navy job in medicine years ago, but she could be into anything by now. She certainly was smart. And I moved from medicine to about four other careers.
So chances of her reading your blog might me small - but the chances of her reading the blogs of the bloggers that read your blog? I like those odds better.
Come on, Robert - make it a cause - “Find Katie” - let’s see if the Internet, your friends at Microsoft and Google, and the combined power of the web can accomplish :)
Katie is worth the effort.
Rob
December 13th, 2006 at 4:02 am
Hello Robert, good for you. I too found many old friends and flames using web 2.0 sites like myspace and orkut.
BTW, Rob La Gesse, a search in myspace did give me a “Katie Kerr”, you can find her details here:
http://www.biostat.washington.edu/research/centers.php
hope she is the one you are looking for. :)
Cheers.
December 13th, 2006 at 4:20 am
Yeah, I found a few friends. Most times they find me. My HS girlfriend found me when I was writing for an online music webzine. Someone printed out my happy name and face along with the latest article on her personal printer at work! She picked it up to deliver it and “lo and behold– there I was - Rex Dixon grinning back at her”
Since then we have kept in pretty good contact, and I actually got her hooked on blogging like 3 years ago. Her personal blog is a place now that is really active with posts. She is more the woman that likes to let out rants of her teenagers and her family. That and work. It’s a great read to get away from tech stuff.
Rex
December 13th, 2006 at 6:14 am
@Abhishek - thanks for that link. It’s not the right person though - but wow - that girl has a serious cv! http://www.biostat.washington.edu/people/CVs/katiek.pdf
Rob
December 13th, 2006 at 7:03 am
I had an experience like this earlier this year.
I had dedicated an interview with the band Tonic (writers of “If You Can Only See” the most played Rock song on radio in 1997) on http://www.musicfrisk.com (one of my older web projects) to a girl I used to know that loved the band. She Googled herself one day, saw it and gave me a call. It was nice to hear her voice! :)
Speaking of music I learned last week that Adam Lasnik from Google is a music creator himself, it was nice to meet him at SES Chicago.
December 13th, 2006 at 8:03 am
She is in the tech industry and didn’t know Scoble was online?
December 13th, 2006 at 8:49 am
@12 So which is it? She’s not a plugged in as she should be, or Scoble is not as relevant in the tech industry as some think he is?
December 13th, 2006 at 9:48 am
There’s a good thing about male names and search: they don’t usually change after marriage. :)
Too bad my maiden name is likely already forgotten.
Maybe that’s also the situation for Katie Kerr. Don’t you wish there were an easier way?
I’m kind of happy that I graduated immediately before the Facebook generation took off; I’m seeing my old classmates slowly sign up, but since Facebook wasn’t around when we were students, the true power of the system is still lacking for us. I can imagine how much worse it is if you graduated prior to 2000, 1990, or even earlier.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
LayZ: there’s lots of techies who don’t read my blog. I have 45,000 visits a day according to WordPress (I doubt that too, it’s way too high) But even if that were true, there are millions of developers, and many more who are involved in the tech industry. Heck, at CES next month there’ll be more than 100,000 people. So, a small percentage of the tech industry reads me.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
It’s harder for us guys to find old girlfriends, because their last names are likely to have changed; as well, I suspect women are less likely than guys to “expose” themselves on the Web. (I’ve taught my daughters to disguise their location, age, name, etc when posting info about themselves on Web sites.)
My experience (twice now) is that old girlfiends come looking after a divorce or similar change in relationship — they’re tracking down the possibility of reigniting that old flame.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
I’m not Rob’s katie, but there are a few of us out there. Maybe he should include a little more information about her on his own blog. About how old is she? More specifics on her position/title/rank? Do you remember where she as educated?
One more thing for everyone else, most people looking for an ex (of any sort) like this are nice people just wanting to get in touch with an old friend. Don’t forget though that some have sinister motives, and that they could be enlisting your help to find someone they couldn’t. When you help someone out, find the lost friend and give them the contact information - so they can make the choice to get in touch.
December 13th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Katie: yeah, and then he should have a few bloggers link to that post. I bet that if anyone ever Googles her name, they’ll find that post, and then bug her to answer.
December 13th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Yea, just make sure they aren’t in the Social Security database of death certificates. I was scanning some old pictures and found one of my first girlfriend. While I was scanning, I Googled her and got an obit. OUCH!
December 13th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
That’s bizzard.
December 13th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Thats gr8.. hope everyone out here finds their girl friend thro ur blog… cheers :)
December 13th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
congrats… So did you ask her out for a lunch?
December 13th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Yeah, we’re gonna get together soon.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
hi folks…
December 14th, 2006 at 12:31 am
[...] Early yesterday Robert Scoble has mentioned that his First Girlfriend found him in Google. [...]
December 14th, 2006 at 12:59 am
Can’t work out whether it’s more remarkable that
a) izer thinks it worth remarking that such things are possible on the net. Friends reunited have already made a business out of it.
b) that such private details of your lives are suitable for publication.
c) that I (and others) followed the link and read about it (go think) ?
So was girlfriend v1.0 less compatible than v2.0?
Q) At what point does the Kaizen ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen ) stop?
December 14th, 2006 at 3:37 am
That is very scarey. Very, very scarey. I think I had a nightmare about this. A girl I…spent time with…found me after 10 or so years of waiting for me to call her. Like I said. Scarey.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:36 am
The web is great for finding old friends. I actually found an old buddy from High School this past year which was cool. No ex-girlfriend searches though. The Mrs. would flip ;-)
December 14th, 2006 at 9:36 am
just curious..has rob tried out places like Facebook and Linkedin? Dont think Orkut will help as Americans (as compared to the rest of the world!) stay away from that site.
December 14th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Sorry not buying that Robert ever had a girlfriend….LMAO!
December 14th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Yeah Google has been doing some amazing things to be able to find people on the internet. Good luck on that, maybe you could meet up one day.
December 14th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
you could also try this site, I found it helpful when searching out people in service, while working on my family genealogy
http://benefits.military.com/reg/buddy_finder_reg.do?strGotoURL=http%3A//www.military.com/Military/Locator/New/Splash/%3FESRC%3Dggl_mem_bf_navy.kw%26loc%3DQL%26np%3D1
Hope that helps you find your lady , this is so romantic :-)
December 14th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
[...] With the Internet, you find almost anyone whom you’ve lost contact with. I did a search for a certain someone a few years back via Friendster and found the information. I believe Scobleizer is not the only one who can be googled. However, if the name is common, sieving through the tons of links would have to be done. [...]
December 14th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
if i could find my first bf who’s Nepalese and now lives in rural Nepal, Google’s God.
December 14th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
I suppose there are tons of Prospect High Schools, but the one in the suburbs of Chicago?
December 14th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
is there a “firstgirlfriends.com”? Probably not proper!
December 14th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
I dont find this odd at all- I look for all old friends frequently. Did you respond back to her? I love catching up with old friends.
December 14th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
The net has really made it a little too easy to find people. It’s almost scary sometimes. Thankfully, I find nothing about myself online. There is not one search engine that has my real name and information. I never post with my full name anywhere online.
I grew up overseas as a military brat, and some of the people I grew up with are virtually unfindable, and I’m a savvy net guy with 10 years of IT experience. Some people just like to not be on the grid and findable.
I found one friend from HS by searching for a graphic designer on the East Coast. I ran into his website and there were photos of him and I was shocked that the little innocent straight-As HS student had become a long-haired, multi-piercing, tattooed hippy liberal artist. Go figure.
December 14th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
now that’s interesting. :)
December 15th, 2006 at 12:04 am
What does Mrs. Scoble have to say about this?
December 15th, 2006 at 12:30 am
That’s how my cousin who lives in Croatia found me after not being in contact for upwards of 15 years (I live in Canada).
Go Google!
December 15th, 2006 at 12:42 am
Ajay: I already covered what Mrs. Scoble has to say about this. She thinks it’s fun.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:45 am
One high school friend googled me and made contact last year. I’m surprised more old friends haven’t found me via Google. Earlier this year my sister told me I had to get a MySpace account because old friends were sending her messages to ask about me. They couldn’t find me, though I’m the top several results for my name in Google. I guess people don’t know about the power that waits at their fingertips.
December 15th, 2006 at 3:17 am
My name is way way too common to be successfully googled. muhwahahaha
December 15th, 2006 at 3:23 am
that’s wonderful. i met my current beau through blogging. how great is the net! :D
December 15th, 2006 at 3:36 am
What a fantastic event. Congratulations, you’ll be so happy for having the opportunity of seing her again and talk to her about how your lifes have changed and all those things. :D
December 15th, 2006 at 3:37 am
[...] This should be possible for everyone, not only if you are a high-profile blogger… [...]
December 15th, 2006 at 4:16 am
“First girlfriend finds me through Google”
Why? She forget where you live already? Oh man. You know that one cut deep. Stop being number one, Scoble. I’ve got lawyers.
http://wordpress.com/blog/2006/12/15/new-wordpresscom-design/#comment-12082
December 15th, 2006 at 4:29 am
I can understand being careful when it comes to discerning intention when someone looks you up on the Internet. However, I doubt there is anything nefarious when it is people you know from high school. Simple curiosity is all it takes.
My other observation after hearing about people who ‘don’t want to be on the grid’ is that the choice to not do something nerdy and mess with computers when not at work, I think, is relatively common. However, you don’t need to actively have a blog or maintain a personal webpage to be on the Internet. Anyone who has their name in the media, including professional publications, gets the name splashed on the Internet. I was able to find an ex-girlfriend from college because of her professional contributions as a copywriter in New York. Her advertising work had gotten her identified in some leading journals. My wife even helped find her info when I said I wanted to send her a Christmas card. Go Figure!
I also think that the public information that gets tracked like phone number, past residences, and other basic info is getting added to the Internet. A site called zabasearch dot com, for example, shows quite a bit of information about people…even birth month and year sometimes. The only way to make it difficult is to have an incredibly common name. Otherwise, people who know something about you might be able to get info on you. It may not always be a stalking campaign, but it’s something to think about.
December 15th, 2006 at 5:26 am
Cool! Google is just a big archive of our personal history!
December 15th, 2006 at 5:38 am
lolx… i only found my primary school friends through friendster. Or was it the other way round. But then, my name is not common, if you want to use my romanised chinese name, that’s it…
December 15th, 2006 at 6:17 am
Alas, isn’t it funny how she still remembered you after all these years? Maybe that’ll happen to me one day… and Rob- good luck finding Katie- I hope she’s all you remember and more. xx
December 15th, 2006 at 6:35 am
Nice one. I had to leave the country whe I became famous in the UK!!!
December 15th, 2006 at 6:49 am
What really amazes me is how people pour tons of personal information on places like Orkut. Names, photographs, relationship status, city of work / residence, you name it. And yet these are the very persons who are the first to scream privacy and harassment in real world. Orkut appears to me to be a time-bomb waiting to explode.
December 15th, 2006 at 6:59 am
You know? Maybe it’s a sign! (If you don’t have a girlfriend and she doesn’t have a boyfriend, of course) Maybe you ment to be together, there are NO coincidences, only facts that look like coincidences. Good luck!
December 15th, 2006 at 7:27 am
Very cool. I haven’t had any old friends find me, but then again, my generation has come to computers late and they probably don’t know what a blog is :)
è¿é
December 15th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Pamela Rajkumar - please find me.
December 15th, 2006 at 10:17 am
well in sweden, you can even get for free ALL personal data about any person registered in Sweden as soon as you know his/her so called “person number”: address, income, etc. So first you google someone, then you check the personal data and you know immediately if itt can be a good deal getting in touch again! ;-)
December 15th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Something similar happened to me yesterday: one of my teachers found out that I had been talking ’bout him in my blog. One friend of his friends found it out by Google, phoned him and told him so. Weird internet world, lol.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Are you going to run away together and live happily ever after? :)
December 15th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Go get her…
I found my girlfriend from internet too..
But i can’t find her at google.. lol..
Good luck bro..
December 15th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
[...] People usually say it is the power of love that binds people/lovers/couples together. But in this case, it is the power of Google that has binded this pair of ex-flames. [...]
December 16th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Atul is absolutely right.
MySpace.com is a one-stop shop for stalkers and identity thieves.
It IS scary how willing people are to pour their lives out on the Internet. Everything is public as in globally public. Once it is out there, it’s on a log somewhere.
December 17th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
I’ve found a number of old friends through google and i think it’s amazing. A couple of years ago, i decided to look for an old University friend who came from Zimbabwe to study in the UK and we were on the same University Economics Degree course at Birmingham University in the early 1970’s. I googled his name and was shocked and amazed to find out that he was now the head of President Mugabe’s Zimbabwe secret service. It is amazing what you can find out, but i have had no luck with finding any of my old school or college girlfriends (Aaahhh!!!).
December 18th, 2006 at 12:32 am
[...] Robert Scoble, for making me feel like a part of the tech community and for being a mensch [...]
December 25th, 2006 at 4:30 am
hi i want girlfriend from any nationality i live in dubai im 18 years old
January 9th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Slightly sad that last comment - on Christmas Day too. Best thing to do Tahir is to follow Roberts ex-girlfriends lead and perhaps get out occasionally and speak to real people. If you can find someone closer to home you might even get to meet them.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:13 am
So cool!
My first girlfriend also got in touch with me after searching for my name and finding my blog! I was surprised, naturally.
I just hope yours had better things to talk about then mine… people really do change a lot from what they were as teenagers… :(
August 16th, 2007 at 12:18 am
Don’t listen to Jerks just be yourself and do what ur hearts tell u and always remember you r a master of your self…….
November 6th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Good site. I am searching for my first girlfriend (first kiss). She was 12 and I was 13 or 14. Her name is/was Leigh Ann Gore from Bellevue, WA. If anyone knows of her, would appreciate it. Mahalo a Nui Loa.
December 30th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
hey there was this one girl I really liked a long time ago but then she moved away. later that year I moved as well and, strange enough, it turned out that we had ended up both moving only about two blocks away from each other! we didnt even know it until two years later! just goes to show how strange thing work out, huh
December 30th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
oh i almost forgot, during those two years we were both looking al over the net, phone book, and everything for each other.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:42 am
i am alone. no one can understand my feelings so i am searching for a true friend.