What are people saying about you?

Before the advent of the internet, it was much more difficult to find out what people were saying about you. Gossip from your mother or your friends were standard par for the course, juicy conversation could once upon a time be picked up by dual lines on the telephone. The internet has served to change all of this, you are no longer in speaking range to know who is talking about you and in what way. Community is now no longer limited to the people that you regularly see but can be created on entire online social networking groups through sites such as MySpace and Facebook, the people in your past and present lives can now be documented and tracked on a single website.

Most of the information about you will mostly be harmless and trivial but if there are people who wish you harm in cyberspace? Such as the case of teenager Megan Meier who tragically killed herself when her older neighbour posed as a teenage crush in a appalling hoax. Or there’s the website Dontdatehimgirl.com where angry lovers angrily name and shame their cheating lovers. It seems nearly impossible with the enormity of the web to track down everything that’s being said about you at the one time. It was documented that twice as many people have googled themselves this year then they had last year with only 4% of people finding uncomfortable or embarrassing news about themselves but most people generally googled themselves because they wanted to make sure their personal reputation was secure.

There is a website that helps to track the number of mentions to each individual that subscribes. Buzznumbers monitors each comment that is stated about you and monitors the frequency in which is mentioned, it tells you from at time and from which country the comment was logged. And while you can’t erase the smears or fix the insults, a lot of the mentions will frequently be used in a public medium such as a forum or a blog which will give the individual a point of reference for rebuttal . It also helps to provide context by linking back to the article in which it was stated. What good will it do though to find out if nasty things are being said about you? While initially hurtful, it can eventually be used as a catalyst for change and reconciliation, [example] However there is a good chance that not all the things being said about you on the internet are negative, there are be often positive reactions on the internet as well. Tracking mentions on the internet may not be an overwhelmingly negative experience.
There are frequently affirmative testimonials on the internet which go unnoticed if not actively searched for.