Want to lookup a person or access his/her public records without him knowing any better? In past for this kind of work you would have to hire a private investigator who would do this dirty little secretive work for you and charge a hefty fee for it. But now you could locate and investigate any one without any hefty bills or time delays.

The first and the simplest way is to scoop material online. Most of the states, counties and localities post their websites with all the public records on them. In fact most government agencies that scan public records and driver licenses post the result on their website. You could easily collect any information if you want by just visiting these websites.

Internet is one of the man’s finest creations in history of its existence. Besides the government agencies most companies upload their websites and willingly or unwillingly provide users useful information. Almost all documents by the companies will include social security number and information such as known aliases and previous addresses. You could chance upon these websites and access all the information without coughing up a dime.

With government going online with criminal records through police stations you could also find dirt at their websites. If you feel it’s a long and a tedious process and you don’t feel up to it. You could email or phone the police station and get your work done for free.

Searching for these websites could begin on popular search engines like Alta Vista, Google and Yahoo. If you are looking for inmates information typing in his/ her name along with the state name will get you all the information you need. The official websites will only provide for the crimes they committed but you could get all the juicy tit bits from newspaper clippings.

A word of warning though, it is not easy to get information in a time constraint through free web sites but for efficient, accurate and fast results its better to hire an paid services. It will save you valuable time and you would not need to go through unnecessary information for finding out the material you want to use.

Popularity: unranked [?]

In the world of business, knowing your competitors’ strategies before competing is crucial in plans to win the battle. With this knowledge, you can always stay ahead of your competitors.  The Internet is a gateway to an array of competitive intelligence.  Let me share a few with you.

SpyFu.com

SpyFu allows you to spy on your online competitors. All you have to do is type in the keywords to know what your competitors are up to. This competitive research tool monitors approximately 4.5 million domains. Be prepared to find information how much your competitors are paying for and advertisement and the total number of clicks received for their ads.  And the best part is you get to enjoy this information at no cost.

Google Alerts

Again at no cost, employ Google to be your faithful spy.  Sign-up for Google Alerts and enter the keywords to what you would want to track. Thereafter, based on your preferred notification frequency you will have updated competitive intelligence sent to your mailbox. Not only does it monitor your competitor’s movement, you could also have first hand knowledge about what is being said about your own company.

Way Back Machine

Way Back Machine, a tool that allows you to see the history of your competitors. Observe what has changed and the things that have stayed consistent through the years. You may be able to gain insights to what strategy works and what does not. You can also review the changes of your own company. This is one convenient way of obtaining internal information when the predecessors have left the company. Learning from experience will save you from unnecessary strategy misfortunes.

Niche Watch

By typing detailed technical information on Niche Watch, you will get the top 20-competitor analysis.  The analysis includes information such as the number of backlinks to the page and to the domain, number of pages indexed in Google, keyword occurrences and page rank, all in anchor, all in title and text rank for both domain and webpage information

Popularity: 24% [?]

Conventional social networking has been replaced slowly by social networking sites. Making friends no longer stays in the boundary of schools. Circle of friends is spreading to every part of the world by just a click on the buttons displayed. The main function of social networking sites is to connect people from around the world who share common friends, fraternity and even interests.
The current most popular social networking site is Facebook, a site that becomes an overnight serendipitous craze among young people. The best feature in Facebook is online games that lured people to sign up. Before Facebook appeared, it was Friendster and MySpace that ruled the online communities. Mass migration of online users to sites with better quality music and video capability is inevitable since users are only seeking for entertainment. Furthermore, young people always love fresh new interesting sites to pass their leisure time.
Virtual communities in online universe serve as huge market for lucrative business. Sites with high portfolio attract giant advertising companies to invest in such sites. The exponential increment of users of social networking sites cannot be ignored by far-sighted business people. Popular users of social networking sites like Xanga and Blogger are endorsed to boost business sales. In some bizarre cases, this also creates a path for fortunate users into entertainment business.
Although social networking sites seems like the best rendezvous for old friends, it is a myth that social networking sites strengthen relationships. Rumours are easily circulated in such sites to tarnish one’s reputation. In some extreme cases, online scams are mushrooming to dupe gullible people. Even spreading computer- corrupting virus is possible through the sites.
Therefore, it is up to the users’ judgment on whether social networking sites are harmful or not. The long- term success of such sites is determined by users whether they here to stay or just a fad.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Searching for someone that you have not seen in years in the United Kingdom (UK) is hard work. UK is a unitary state which consists of four countries and the person that you want to find might be in any part of the UK. With population of approximately 60 million people, the mission of finding someone sounds almost impossible. However, with the appropriate methods, it will not be long for you  to be re-united with the person that you have been looking for.
Some people prefer to search through online directories such as Find People UK and UK People Finder. By giving accurate information and the finest details of a person such as the middle name and siblings will help you to minimize the scope of your search. It is helpful to include dates and times of certain occasions to reduce chances of finding someone with the same name. The information of birth date, addresses database and family members is crucial to narrow down the search results.
If the information about the person is insufficient, people are encouraged to try to post a message through the message board service. There are many websites in the UK that provide such a service. All the user need to do is to write something that only that specific person will know or  recognize. If you are lucky, the person that you are looking for will see the message and will be able to reply your message and soon enough, you will be notified through e-mail for the response that was left for you.
However, there is also a chance that the online methods might not work for you and if all failed, hiring a licensed and skilled investigator might be a wise choice for you, like The UK People Search.  Professional investigator could be the answer to help you find someone from a broad range of sources like the indexes to births, marriages and deaths, telephone directories and The Will Registry.
Harnessing technology like the search engines available on the UK sites to locate a person will help you with your search and it will most definitely make the task less tedious and in the minimum amount of time, but it does not, of course, comes with a guarantee for results. Conventional search route however might do the job but it might takes a very long time to achieve your mission.

Popularity: 31% [?]