My Public Service Good Deed for the Day

Because of my published writing, this blog, and my website, plus the kennel website and the various other ways I've weaseled myself into the internet, I signed up for a service called Google Alerts, which scours the internet for search terms I have provided and emails me with the results. For example, I have it set up to keep an eye open for any time 'John Sharp' comes up. So on a given morning I will have an email listing the happenings of all the John Sharps important enough to make the web.

There are three John Sharps that I hear about the most: former State of Texas comptroller and current Texas A&M University Chancellor, John Sharp; Kansas City Councilman John Sharp; and Peoria journalist John Sharp. After that, most of the John Sharps are obituaries, like John D. Sharp from Los Angeles, which always make me a little sad.

It will also return hits where 'John' and 'Sharp' and in the same paragraph. It's just Google being thorough, I guess. 

But sometimes it shows me me, like when I am published someplace. The best part is that one of the times I didn't even know I was published and I had to have words with the publisher. It's bad form to publish without notification.

And a couple of times it found where I was mentioned in a blog.

I know it's not perfect, though. Sometimes after I am published I wait and wait for my Google alert and it never comes. It makes me feel like the internet has forgotten about me. But I also know that all the John Sharps in the world who have set up their own Google Alerts will be flashed a notice when one day my obit wends it way across the interwebs. I hope it makes them feel a little bit sad.

So now that I've written John Sharp enough times to spark a dozen Google Alerts, I'll leave you to set up your own Google Alerts so you can keep track of yourself. So long as your name isn't Barack Smith or David Obama, you won't get too many hits.