Alan R. Earls writes, for The Boston Globe—Are you ready to be Googled?

There is much talk about the increasing popularity of googling people for any number of reasons. Well, Google is a social networking tool of sorts, isn't it? We've been writing about Google here on The Social Software Weblog in numerous instances over this past year. And specifically about Google's efficacy as a social networking and information gathering engine.

Where do you go to find information about someone you might be hiring, signing a contract with, or potentially considering as an employer? Eliyon? LinkedIn? Zero Degrees? Ryze? The new service on this scene, Ziggs.com? Or perhaps, simply Google? I just signed up at Ziggs.com to see what they are up to over there.

So what do you look like from a 'googling' perspective? Are your best features visible? Your worst? Or, are you, by some strange stroke of luck, nearly invisible? Seems to be something to ponder if you are contemplating making a job move, hiring new talent, or generally curious about those you are interacting with on a professional basis.

Will the business social networking services mentioned above be able to achieve a level of reliability that will encourage the current surge of seekers to use their services, rather than simply googling?