Certainly one thing the internet has done is connect people from all over the world. We now have communication like never before. It is hard to imagine the amount of data that is exchanged every hour across the globe.
One way to use that to our advantage is to find people. I'm not talking about people that are fugitives from justice or anything like that (although that is a good use of technology). I mean people with whom you have lost contact over the years. High school or college friends, former co-workers from ten or twenty years ago - wouldn't you like to know what they are doing now? There is a website that is devoted to that purpose - it is called Long Time Lost.
The concept is simple - it is based on the fact that most people, at some time, will go on Google and do a vanity search. That means that they will just go there and type in their own name to see what comes up (come on, you know you have done it!). What you need to do is go to the Long Time Lost website, create a free account, and put in the name of the person you are looking for. When that person does the search for their own name on Google, the website pops up and tells them that you are trying to contact them. Nifty!
If you want, you can also just go to the site and type in your name, to see if anyone has registered to look for you. I did that, and one result came up. It said that someone named Annette Thomas Hart was looking for Brandon Scott Johnson. The reason given: "son". That was a little mysterious! Even though I was not the one being searched for, it made me wonder what the story was behind that entry.
Give it a try - it is completely free.
Video - not hilarious, but amusing...
