Thinking back to the earliest days of the World Wide Web, Yahoo! was the most comprehensive listing of Internet content. When a website wanted to be included, the website name, URL and a brief abstract were submitted to Yahoo! and their personnel actually reviewed the site and slotted it into their directory tree hierarchy based on a judgment call.
With the subsequent creation of search engines, for the purpose of cataloging web content, came the advent of seemingly endless machinations by website creators to boost their particular websites' rankings in search results. Today, a decade later, the algorithms used by the most respected search sites -- most famously Google -- have been carefully designed to resist attempts to manipulate the outcome of search results.
As a website that never played such games, Who's Who Online® was pleased to discover recently that "We're No. 1!" In search result rankings for the phrase "Who's Who", those ranking Who's Who Online® at the top of the search results include leading sites such as Google, Yahoo!, LookSmart, Gigablast, About.com, and Search.com.
While not all search sites ranked Who's Who Online® at the top of the very top of their lists, the showing remains impressive. The site scored the second-highest ranking on Lycos, the third-highest on MSN, and the number four slot on Altavista. Considering that there is no charge whatsoever to individuals who are profiled in Who's Who Online®, and that searching the website also remains free, the triumph of Who's Who Online® in the search engine rankings may be a classic case of doing well by doing good.
In the aftermath of the telecommunications meltdown, which left giants like WorldCom and Global Crossing in bankruptcy and a number of blue chip firms at the brink of it, the dust appears to be settling. Innovative products and services are once again showing up in the market and the news, like sprigs of green sprouting from charred earth.
Unfortunately, sadder but wiser consumers have been painfully reminded that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. There are no free lunches and, even if the tab doesn't come today, payment with interest may be deducted directly from one's 401K in the not too distant future. It is against this backdrop of renewal and sobriety that Who's Who Global NetWork® has elected to expand its telecommunications offerings in 2004 to include value-added messaging services utilizing the whoswho.com, whoswho.net and whoswho.biz domains.
First offered as e-mail forwarding services using other domains, the expanded offering will encompass features including a webmail interface for remote retrieval of mail from POP accounts, and mail forwarding, including forwarding to wireless devices. A variety of state-of-the-art enhancements including virus protection and spam filtering will complete each service plan. The specific packages to be offered in conjunction with each of the "whoswho" domains are still being finalized, but syncronization with MicroSoft Outlook on the user's desktop is expected as a feature in at least one of the offerings.
WHO'S WHO GLOBAL NETWORK® is a service mark registered with the United States Patent & Trademark Office for "telecommunications service, namely, electronic transmission reception, and forwarding of messages, data, documents and voice, in Class 38 (U.S. CLS. 100, 101 and 104)." The Who's Who Global NetWork® service mark is also registered in a number of European and Asian countries including the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Monaco, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, and the Ukraine.
Together with the introduction of telecommunications services on the whoswho.com, whoswho.net and whoswho.biz domains, Who's Who Global NetWork® will package a coordinated web presence for members. The offering will spring from the basic Who's Who Online® format, but will be expanded to allow additional pages for content such as full-text biographies, resumes, curricula vitae, formats, testimonials, travelogues, and photo albums.
Formats for other types of professional materials and presentations will be added. Over time the service package offerings are expected to support other important functionality which will facilitate members creating ongoing promotional vehicles for themselves on-site. This includes regularly issued newsletters and, of course, web logs or "blogs."
Membership in the Who's Who Global NetWork® will be open to individuals who are already profiled in a reputable "Who's Who" directory, such as Who's Who Online® or a traditional Who's Who print publication from one of the hundreds of bona fide publishers of such titles around the globe.
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