Akademik

(goo.gul.uh.BIL.uh.tee)

n.

The ease with which information about a person can be found on an Internet search engine, particularly Google. Also: Googleability, googlability, google-ability.

—googleable adj.

What's your 'googleability' quotient? No clue? Well, then check it out right away because if the world's premier search engine can't trace you in less than a second, then you are a certified also-ran; or so parents of newborns in the US feel. News reports say that 'googleability' is now a primary baby-naming requirement, which means that parents want names for their children which will work well for web searches: an unusual name that might figure among the first top 10 search results.

—"The name of the game," Hindustan Times, May 14, 2007

All the Googler needs is a name, and she's off. It's worse if your name is unusual, as mine is. The difference in Googleability between a person with the name ''Mary Smith'' and a person with my name makes me wonder whether Googleability might one day affect how parents name their children. If Mary Smith had been named, instead, Upanishad Smith, she'd be more Googleable. Of course, that's not to guarantee she'd do anything Googleworthy. But what will future conscientious parents decide? Will Googleability or anonymity be the greater gift?

—Donna Steinbraker, "Paying a price for Googleability," The International Herald Tribune, December 5, 2006

So, how far does cultural literacy go? Where does Trivial Pursuit end and cultural literacy begin? Is there significant overlap?

The things that follow are probably "Googleable" (maybe not "Matamoros"). How much does "Googleability" correlate with cultural

literacy?

—Jerry Bauer, alt.fan.cecil-adams, June 25, 2001