Most people want to know where their money’s coming from. Some people, however, want to know where it’s going. I get to know both!
There’s a web site that uses the full power of the Internet, and the power of its users, to let anyone track and analyze the movements of the paper currency they spend.
Where’s George?
It’s something that can be answered. The “George” in question is the fellow on the $1 bill, and along with his colleagues (Tom, Abe, Alex, Andy, Ulysses and Ben), their travels have been entered, mapped, discussed, analyzed, and followed by hundreds of thousands of people who want to know where their money goes.
What’s my story? Years ago, at the age of about 10 years old, I used a typewriter to type “If you receive this bill please write to me at…” around the edges of a one dollar bill. I received a photocopy of that dollar about six months later mailed from the other side of the country. With the WheresGeorge website, I discovered I could relive a part of my formative years via the Internet.
For me, it was about “reaching out.” My attraction to the Where’s Geroge phenomenon is the same outward reach that compelled me when I was 9 years old to put a message into a bottle and drop it into the ocean at Atlantic City. And inspired me for a 6th grade science project to attach postcards to helium baloons to research the prevailing winds (it was really to see from where the cards would come back!). And my response to a comic book article to have a Pen Pal in the Philippines when I was in elementary school. My youthful interest in CB Radio, and then the discovery that Ham Radio people routinely sent QSL Postcards back to people they spoke to across the country or around the world is another side of this same coin.
The ability nowadays to use a computer to record and track the paths of paper currency is just a newly updated outlet for my desire to extend the realm of my interests.
Visit the WheresGeorge web site at: http://wheresgeorge.com
View my WheresGeorge profile at: http://tinyurl.com/trackmycash
Enjoy! (And if you don’t know where your money’s going, some “Georger” probably does!)
–Marc
May 9, 2009 @ 5:30 PM