From finding whistleblowers or experts in esoteric fields, there are a number of methods that can both improve accuracy and save time for investigators.
You can download these notes as a pdf: finding contributors
This section has information about the ‘hidden web’; and those subscription, free, and non-indexed sources (including directories and archives) that will help you to find contributors online.
Bespoke people finders
These are the most useful tool if you have the name of the person you are looking for but want more information such as contact details or articles they’ve written.
192.com www.192.com (subscription)
Or try one of the free (albeit less robust) alternatives:
123 people www.123people.com
Pipl www.pipl.com
Yasni www.yasni.com
Yoname www.yoname.com
Search engine functions (in Google)
Below are some of the advanced functions available to the searcher, for more detailed ways of searching, including by document type, see newsgathering.
The domain function: site:
When using the domain function there are three elements involved, if you were looking for an academic expert you would used the following:
- subject term/s
- the term connecting the subject to his/her profession (ie expert, department, professor etc.)
- the domain function: site: eg.ac.uk (for UK universities)
Compare:
“solvent abuse” professor site:ac.uk
With:
expert solvent abuse
And compare:
fraud ~data professor site:.ac.uk
With:
expert data fraud
Specifying the subject, level of expertise and limiting the search to academic urls can make finding experts much quicker.
A full list of top-level domains can be found at NORID domains.
Google’s cached option will show you the page as it was when it was first indexed, so you won’t miss out on your terms if the page has changed.
You can also use the domain function to find local pressure groups/nimby groups/associations and non-commercial bodies. For example, when looking for pressure group/s opposed to the building of phone masts.
Compare:
group “telephone masts” opposed
With:
group “telephone masts” opposed site:.org.uk
You can also use the domain function to find discussions (and hence contributors) in Facebook, and other social networks.
See:
“I worked” “lehman brothers” site:facebook.com/topic
You can only do this through Google, not within the Facebook search, see the Slewfootsnoop blog for more information.
Finding contributors via social networks
Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites. Many of its users are interested in international social and political issues, and some are experts in their field – the site contains groups based on themes and issues from around the world. Try searching ecology society site:facebook.com
Likewise, Myspace has similar groups – try searching their groups for alternative energy.
Other social networks are popular in different parts of the world. For example, if you have a Google account and are interested in finding contributors from South America – give Orkut a try. It’s very popular in Brazil and India.
Likewise, Badoo is more popular in the rest of Europe than in the UK, and they are even making an effort to progress in the Russian Social Network market.
But perhaps the best place to start is amongst those services which allow online communities to create their own social networks. Ning is a good example of this.
If you are looking for professional communities then LinkedIn is probably a good place to start. See the Slewfootsnoop blog for a comparison between LinkedIn and Facebook for finding people.
It may be possible to find contributors and potentially useful actuality from photo-sharing network Flickr – try this tag-search for local pollution.
Technorati is currently the best known search engine for blogs. An alternative is Google’s Advanced Blog Search.
You can also used the advanced search on Twitter
Contributor finding in pre-web 2.0 sources
Try using Google scholar to keep up-to-date on the latest academic findings and experts in your field.
Amazon advanced search is also a great place to find experts around a subject matter.
And don’t discount the various forums, and boards people use to express themselves, and flag up issues worth investigating – you can even create your own search engine to track people who contribute to different online forums.
Contributor Finding Online – Murray Dick – July 2009
useful links
ProfNet
A database of communications professionals and PR people.