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Girlgle

 Makes men and women equally googlable
  (+3, -5)
(+3, -5) 		  [vote for,
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I like to search for the names of my old high-school friends, to see if there's any news about them or what they might be doing today. But unfortunately, I can't search for any of my old female friends, because by now they are probably married and have probably changed their names.

I know there are services which you can pay to find out someone's married name, but can you imagine if, for some reason I wanted to talk to one of these friends again and she asked me how I got her name and I said I used a special service to get it? That's like stalking.

Instead, it would be nice if search engines had access to a list of name changes (people changing their names could choose whether or not to add their name changes to this list; if declined then it would remain unsearchable) and applied the name change mappings to your searches if you desired.

Name changes would be inserted by the search engine in brackets, into the actual web site text). For example, if you query "Diane Schmidt"; then the cached web page would read: "The Nobel prize was won by Diane [Schmidt-->] Jones on Tuesday."

—phundug, Jul 03 2006

Adult Search Engine www.booble.com
You might find her here.... doh! [MoreCowbell, Jul 06 2006]

At the risk of being obnoxious http://www.facebook.com
Baked! :) [cowtamer, Sep 26 2009]

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       Google for stalkers?
—Galbinus_Caeli, Jul 03 2006
   

       There are plenty of websites purporting to reconnect you with your schoolmates, whatever their sex.
—DrCurry, Jul 03 2006
   

       So google should stalk them for you? /grin/   

       I have a lot of experience with trying to be nice in situations were people assume I'm trying to be nasty. E.g. I have tried to help rape victums on-line and just about always manage to get accused of being some perverted freak due to an innocent remark that is taken very much the wrong way.   

       So I understand your point of view and I don't assume you are stalking, and I also understand the concern that you would be accused of it.   

       But I still couldn't help poking fun.
—James Newton, Jul 03 2006
   

       I don't know about the *stalking* stuff, but I like the name, so maybe a mouth wash for women who like to gargle.
—xandram, Jul 03 2006
   

       Darn! and I thought it would allow search terms to describe what sort of images of girls I wanted to find....   

       Well, maybe in the future...
—ye_river_xiv, Jul 04 2006
   

       [UB] I didn't say *yodelling*!
—xandram, Jul 04 2006
   

       well, you see, whenever I google my name, I get all this stuff about some doctor. and some major meeting somewhere (and a gold metalist) all with my same name, but if I add in the last part, I get stuff anout the fourth HCA convention. @.@ my name is rare in the U.S. but people in eurourpe (sp? I just woke up) are using it, and being important!   

       GRRRRRRRR!
—jabberbox, Jul 04 2006
   

       I did just Google someone I knew at college, and she's all over the Internet, her maiden name double-barreled with her married one. There - not difficult at all.
—DrCurry, Jul 04 2006
   

       Xandram says: Girlgle - "a mouth wash for women who like to gargle". What about: A girlgle - a social activity in which a group of women meet together and gargle. The Girlgles - a female pop group famous for their harmonious gargling.
—Far Out, Jul 04 2006
   

       I admit my idea name is a bit sexist; really this idea should be for all people who have changed their names and want others to know. But I like saying "girlgle".
—phundug, Jul 05 2006
   

       sp: giggle
—reensure, Jul 05 2006
   

       Well if any of your female high school chums went into the porn industry you can use www.booble.com but they probably changed their entire name to Candy.
—MoreCowbell, Jul 06 2006
   

       Talk about built-in obsolescence... so few of my friends would want to just take her husband's name. Everybody's hyphenating or staying the same.
—allterrainbrain, Jul 06 2006
   

       This is just a sub-problem of the more general problem of search engines not realizing when two terms mean the same thing. In this case the search engine should take any page referencing a marriage and/or name change to indicate such an equivalence. But in general search engines would like to have a set of rules for determining when a page is using two names for the same thing.
—dranorter, Sep 24 2009
   


 

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