InformationWeek

Not that you were looking me up. But just to set the record straight, I am not now, nor have I ever been, the other Rusty Weston. Consider this eerie blurbage about my E-doppelganger, from a Washingtonpost.com article: "The 41-year-old Weston, who goes by the nickname 'Rusty' ... described the disintegration of his life since his ... "

Since his what you ask? Since he was arrested and charged with killing two police officers and shooting three others in the Capitol Rotunda in July 1998. Not a funny thought, that. But you've got to take the coincidence in stride. I'm not a brand name, after all, nor am I the sum of all my links.

Which brings us back to search engines. Google, which has won numerous awards, is as good as any I've tried. Ask Jeeves Inc.'s Ask.com is also pretty slick. Both of these search engines have earned high marks for applying artificial intelligence to generate relevant search results to "natural" queries. Google has a search option I particularly admire: "I'm feeling lucky."

It's not just a chuckle for those of us who are humor impaired. "I'm feeling lucky" generally makes the right choice. Sergey Brin, president and co-founder of Google, is certain of it. "I use it often instead of bookmarks," he says. To Brin, Google technology has wider implications: "We're taking the most interesting data of all human knowledge--represented by the World Wide Web--and data mining it. In that sense, we're producing order from chaos."

Still, Brin acknowledges that automation is not without foibles. If a link is generated automatically, "we have no editorial control and you're going to have to live with the consequences." Frankly, that sounded a bit arrogant to me, but I let it pass, given that Brin's a Stanford University Ph.D. candidate currently on leave to become a millionaire.

I lobbed another question for the scholarly executive: If the other Weston popped up first in someone's query, wouldn't that mean he was more well-known--or notorious--than yours truly? Brin, now a bit flustered, blurted out the obvious solution: "You should change your name!" I guess he had a point. And that's what I get for ego-snagging. Meanwhile, it's neck and neck in the race between good and evil Rusty Westons. Be careful where you click.

Rusty Weston (rweston@cmp.com) is executive editor of InformationWeek Research.