Getting Listed with Four11

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On Four11's home page, toward the top is an offer to Get A Free Listing with them. On that page and on other pages, if you do happen to be browsing, on the left side of the screen is a section captioned My Listing and under it Add Me and Login. Click on either the Free Listing at the top or the Add Me on the side. Then enter your e-mail address and click on Register.

Yes, it looks almost exactly like the previous screen and that's why I include it here. It's a little bit confusing, but if you notice, after the list of reasons you should register, there's a line that says "This is not a search form. This will be your free listing at Four11."

If you scroll down the page, you'll see the various information you need to complete in order to get a free listing. Most of it is completely self-explanatory: your name, location, and Internet address. The Primary address should be the e-mail address that you use most often. There also is room to enter two more e-mail addresses, if you like. If the address you entered as your Primary address is the only one you have, don't put anything in the Additional Addresses area. If you have several e-mail addresses, you can add at least two more of them here. In my case, for example, I entered my personal address (the account that I use for primarily for non-work-related correspondence) as a Primary and my business address as Additional.

Following your additional e-mail addresses is place to list Old E-Mail Addresses. Boy, I'm in luck on this one. Hopefully, anyone who happens to be searching for me will see this and know that I don't check that address that I found at Lycos�the one I haven't accessed in years.

Next there's a spot to enter your personal home page if you have one. Note that if your personal home page is at Four11, you don't need to list it here.

The next sections are a bit different and deserve some explanation. Let's begin with Group Connections.

Current Organization is a bit nebulous as an identifier. I entered my company, Research Triangle Institute, but you might be a student or a homemaker, in which case you would be more likely to enter the name of the school or the word Homemaker to indicate one of those associations.

To the right of Current Organization, and in the entries that follow, is a box that is checked and is marked with an asterisk. I was busy filling in the info and didn't take the time to find out what that meant until I got to the end of the page. What that indicates, since it is checked by default, is that it's acceptable to you for Four11 to show that information if someone does a search that includes your listing in its results. If you don't want the information listed, click on the box with the check to remove it and it won't be shown.

Past Connections�these are kind of fun. If you're searching for an old friend from high school and/or college, you won't want to change these choices. If your search involves some other area�specific interests, for example�click on the down arrow next to Past High School and you'll see areas you may enter instead of your high school that will make it easier for friends to find you.

After you register, you can customize your listing and enter specific areas of interest, such as the name of your high school or college, the hobby that you are associated with, the military unit you were a member of and so on, that will remind old friends of you in the most specific ways.

You can choose from a number of areas including, interests, research areas, and military service. Consider what you would expect that old friend of yours to search if he or she were looking for you. I suspect that my old friends would immediately think of books because I have always been a voracious reader. Or they might look for High School. The same list is featured in the next selection, so you have two areas that you can use to help others narrow their search for you.

I know, I know! The idea is for you to find Graham, bless his heart. We're getting there. Trust me.

You next are asked to enter your password twice. I'm sure you've heard it before but don't use a password that you use on another site and do use one that you will remember. And no, do not ask me how you do that. I'm darned if I know. In fact, I once sent e-mail to HotWired (http://www.hotwired.com) wherein I admitted that I did register at one time and I knew I had a password but couldn't remember it. They kindly sent me a new password and I lost it. I am not kidding�I just plain lost the mail message. I haven't had the nerve to ask them for it again; it's just too embarrassing. I somehow doubt they keep a list of people who lose their passwords but I still have this horrible feeling that someone will see my second request and put my name on their list of completely stupid users. It's a personal problem. Thanks for letting me share.

Anyway! Now you submit your form. When you do, you'll see a screen with some general information. It covers the time that may be required to find your listing and information about your password. Now, go right ahead and click on Click Here.

When you do, you get what at first looks to be the same screen you've seen before so that you can search the e-mail directory�first name, last name, domain, and so on. But if you look again, you'll notice that now you can do an Advanced E-mail Search from this screen.

Now you have a broader range of areas in which to search. You can enter information about the organization if you know which company Graham's working with. There's also an opportunity to enter past locations (that might be useful); there are those connections (schools, colleges, hobbies), and searches on Web pages and sleeper search. "Sleeper search?" you ask?

Yes, sleeper search. You can request that Four11 notify you if your friend registers a listing, which is a good deal. You don't even have to remember to check back. The good folks at Four11 will check for you and send you e-mail if your friend or associate registers.

Notice that where before you had Add Me and Login under My Listing, you now have View and Change. You can check what you have listed for yourself with View and change it with Change.

You go searching again for Graham; I'll see if I come up with a more seriously split personality. I'll refine my search for myself by specifying a past connection of College and entering Lenoir Rhyne in the key words area.

Now that's more like it! Four11 returns exactly one match and it is definitely me.