So just how exactly did 21-year-old software developer Matt Mullenweg become Google's first result on some days when you type in a search for ``Matt?''
Surely, there must be something screwy about Google's ranking technique -- he is way ahead of widely recognized folks like Matt Damon (all the way back on page 2 of the results) and Matt Groening (back on page 8). It turns out there are legitimate reasons why he's there.
As he explains it, his ascent in Google has mirrored the success of WordPress, his open-source blogging software. About a quarter of new WordPress blogs leave a link to Mullenweg in their blogroll, and ``that has certainly not hurt my search-engine ranking,'' he says.
Google factors in those links as it makes its assessment about popularity. He also happens to be affiliated with all kinds of tech organizations, and has multiple links on his site to them (and probably links coming in). And his ranking didn't exactly take him by surprise.
Indeed, his heroic effort at getting there is chronicled by his various blog observations along the way. The moral of the story: At Google, the most famous people are software geeks -- not actors, or graphic artists, or anyone else.
WEB SITE RETRACTS HP STORIES: The MIT Technology Review magazine recently retracted two stories on Hewlett-Packard that had already been pulled from its Web site.
One story, called ``Carly's Way,'' recounted a tale told to a freelance journalist, Michelle Delio, who identified her source as a former HP engineer, a Hungarian who said his initials were G.S. He reportedly said that working for former chief executive Carly Fiorina reminded him of when he worked for a pig farmer who had been put in charge of dozens of machinists, making parts for factory machines in Hungary.
The story made for some interesting copy. But after it was posted on the MIT Technology Review Web site, HP Labs spokesman Dave Berman called up Jason Pontin, Technology Review's editor, saying he did not recognize the engineer who said he worked at HP from 1975 to 2003.
``We just couldn't figure out who it could be,'' Berman said. ``Even in a company as big as HP, you would know about that individual.'' Berman also said there were other inaccuracies in the article and that he never spoke to Delio, and he did not believe she ever tried to contact HP.
It is still not clear whether Delio was defrauded by a source. Friday, she was quoted in news reports as saying her source had misrepresented himself to her and that Technology Review was correct to retract ``Carly's Way'' and another article she wrote that was also critical of Fiorina.
Pontin said that MIT Technology Review is reviewing seven other stories she wrote for its Web site. He added that the Web site does not have the same fact-checking standards as the magazine, where sources are called by fact checkers and read back their quotes.
``We regret publishing the stories,'' Pontin said. ``But the hard truth is that no Web site in the world practices print-standard fact checking.''
STEM-CELL INSTITUTE BLOG: The chatty Internet news logs known as blogs cover just about every topic under the sun these days.
Now there's even one that tracks the latest developments at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, set up by Proposition 71 last year to distribute $3 billion in stem-cell research grants.
The site -- www.californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com -- was created by David Jensen, who put in 22 years as an editor at the Sacramento Bee and was a press aid to former Gov. Jerry Brown in the mid-1970s.
In one recent missive, Jensen opined that the stem-cell agency seems to have run into far more flak -- particularly from state lawmakers -- than had been expected. As a result, he noted, it ``will need to do everything possible to prevent a constitutional amendment from being placed on the ballot to tighten controls over the agency.''
