I thought one of the coolest parts of MIX was all of the people that you got to meet. I got to meet Jeff, Scott and Whurley and a bunch of other great people. One of my favorite people to meet was Erica O’Grady, who is part of the technology community in Houston, TX (but don’t expect to find her just there - she travels far and wide to barcamps and other community events). During our conversation at MIX, Erica told me that she is “the number 4 Erica on Google” and has the goal of becoming the number 1 Erica on Google. I told her that I would help her out by giving a little link love on my blog.

When she told me this I instantly thought of the entry that Eric Sink made on how he had a higher Google rank than Eric Clapton (did anybody else notice the whole Eric / Erica connection?). I started to wonder how it is that Erica O’Grady could have a higher page rank than say Erica Kane, who has been a character on the TV Show All My Children since 1970! After all Erica Kane has a wikipedia article and Urge Overkill even wrote a song about her (titled Erica Kane). Could it be that Erica Kane is played by the actress Susan Lucci, so when articles are written the links are split between Susan Lucci and Erica Kane? Could it be some technical reasons about how sites are indexed? Or could it be that technically oriented people are still the dominate creator of content on the Internet?

Notes 

  • Erica O’Grady got as high as number 3 on the Google rank recently, but lost some ground this week and is currently at number 5.
  • Don’t ask me why I know the names of Soap Opera characters.