Where's George?

Where's George?

Infobox Website
name = Where's George?



caption = A screen shot taken from version 2.0 of the "Where's George?" website
url = http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
commercial =
type = Money circulation tracker
language = English
registration = Optional
owner = Where's George? LLC
author = Hank Eskin
launch date = December 1998
current status = Active
revenue =
slogan =

Where's George? (abbreviated WG?) is a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money. Its popularity has led to the establishment of a number of other currency tracking websites, sites that track other objects—such as used books—and it has been used in at least one research paper to provide statistical patterns of human travel in the United States. [cite web| last = BJS| year = 2006-01-25| url = http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/web_game_provides_breakthrough_in_predicting_spread_of_epidemics_9874| title = Web game provides breakthrough in predicting spread of epidemics| format = HTML BLOG entry| publisher = Science Blog| accessdate = 2006-04-28]

As of October 8, 2008, "Where's George?" has tracked over 138 million bills totaling more than $754 million.

Overview

The site was established in December 1998 by Hank Eskin, a database consultant in Brookline, Massachusetts.cite news | last = Lacitis | first = Erik | title = Where's George? Tracking the travels of paper currency | work = Local News | language = English | publisher = The Seattle Times Company | date = 2004-10-04 | url = http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002053434_wheresgeorge04m.html | accessdate = 2008-07-16] "Where's George?" refers to George Washington, whose portrait appears on the one-dollar bill. In addition to the one-dollar bill, 2-, 5-, 10-, 20-, 50- and 100-dollar denominations can be tracked. The one-dollar bill is by far the most popular denomination, followed by 20-dollar bills.cite web | last = Eskin | first = Hank | url= http://www.wheresgeorge.com/wrapper.php?page=denom | title= Bill Statistics by Denomination |accessdate= 2008-07-19|date= 2008 |work= George's Top 10 |publisher= Where's George? LLC. | language= English]

To track a bill, a user enters the local ZIP Code and the serial number and series of any United States denomination. International users are also able to participate using an extensive database of unique codes assigned to non-American/Canadian locations. Once a bill is registered, the site reports the time between sightings, the distance traveled between locations, and any comments from the finders (called "user notes").

The site does not track bills older than series 1969, except for one- and two-dollar bills produced in series 1963 or later.

"Where's George?" is supported by advertising, sales of T-shirts and other memorabilia, and by users who pay a fee for extra features. Users who pay a $7/month fee are entered into the "Friends of Where's George?" program, a program which allows these users to cruise the website advertisement free, access certain features others cannot, and refresh reports on the user's entered bills.cite web | last = Eskin | first = Hank | title = The 'Friends of Where's George?' Program | work = Tools/Fun | publisher = Where's George LLC. | date = 2008 | url = http://www.wheresgeorge.com/friends.php | accessdate = 2008-07-19] Eskin states that the "Friends of Where's George?" program will always be optional and payment to use the site will always be at the individual's prerogative.

Hits

A hit is when a bill registered with "Where's George?" is re-entered into the database. "Where's George?" does not have specific goals other than tracking currency movements, but many users like to collect interesting patterns of hits, called [http://wiki.getaportal.com/index.php/Main_Page bingos] . The most common bingo involves getting at least one hit in all 50 states (called "50 state bingo"). Another Bingo, FRB Bingo, is when a user gets hits on bills from all 12 Federal Reserve Banks. [cite web| year = 2007| url = http://www.wheresgeorge.net/dictionary.html#f| title = Encyclopædia Georgetannica| publisher = Slowpoke| accessdate = 2007-08-23]

Most bills do not receive any responses, or hits, but many bills receive two or more hits. The average hit rate is slightly over 11.1%. Double- and triple-hitters are common, and bills with 4 or 5 hits are not unheard of. Almost daily a bill receives its 6th hit. The site record is held by a $1 bill with 15 entries. [cite web | last = Eskin | first = Hank | year = 2007| url =http://www.wheresgeorge.com/wrapper.php?page=top10bills_d0| title = Top 10 Bills Report - All Denominations|work= George's Top 10 | publisher = Where's George? LLC| accessdate = 2008-07-19]

To increase the chance of having a bill reported, users (called "Georgers") may write or stamp text on the bills encouraging bill finders to visit "www.wheresgeorge.com" and track the bill's travels. Bills that are entered into the database, but not marked, are known as stealths.

The website, however, does not encourage the defacement of U.S. Currency. In April 2000, it was investigated by the United States Secret Service, which informed the webmaster that the selling of "Where's George?" rubber stamps on the web site is considered "advertising" on United States currency, which is illegal under 18 U.S.C. § 475. [cite web| year = 2006| url = http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000475----000-.html| title = § 475. Imitating obligations or securities; advertisements| publisher = Cornell Law School| accessdate = 2006-09-29] The web site immediately ceased selling rubber stamps and no further action against the site was taken. At least one spokesperson for the US Secret Service has pointed out in print that marking US bills, even if not defacement, is still illegal for other reasons [cite web | last = Moyer | first = Laura | date = 2004-09-29| url = http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/092004/09292004/1520547/printer_friendly|title=Following the money|work=News|publisher = The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company] under usc|18|475; however, the general view is that using "Where's George?" rubber stamps on currency is not illegal "per se". [cite web| year = 2007| url = http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/search/display.html?terms=333&url=/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000333----000-.html| title = § 333. Mutilation of national bank obligations| publisher = Cornell Law School| accessdate = 2007-11-06] One Secret Service spokesman in Seattle, Washington told The Seattle Times in 2004: "Quite frankly, we wouldn't spend too much looking into this."

Where's George? and geocaching

The phenomenon of geocaching, in which small items are left in obscure places for others to find using GPS systems, has resulted in a problem. Some geocachers leave "Where's George?" bills, which can artificially inflate the number of hits for that bill and disrupt the intent of the site, to track money's natural movement.

The "Where's George?" site says it "prohibits trading or exchanging bills with friends, family or anyone known to the bill distributor for the purpose of re-entry." [http://www.wheresgeorge.com/rules.php#4 User Guidelines/Terms of Service/Rules] , no. 4] [ [http://www.wheresgeorge.com/rules.php#1 User Guidelines/Terms of Service/Rules] , no. 1] This rule is to encourage natural circulation of the currency, and to prevent multiple fake hits from happening on any bill. As a result, all bills containing the word "geocache" or "cache" are tagged as a geocache bill. The site has also dropped a separate listing of "Top 10 Geocache bills" and is cautioning that if geocache sites are used too often, "all Geocache bills will be removed from this site."cite web | last = Eskin | first = Hank |url=http://www.wheresgeorge.com/wrapper.php?page=top10bills_dgc|title=Rules for using Where's George? with Geocaching|accessdate= 2008-07-03|date= 2008|work= Where's George? 2.2|publisher= Where's George? LLC.|language= English]

George Score

The "George Score" is a method of rating users based on how many bills they have entered and also by how many total hits they have had. The formula is as follows:


100 imesleft [sqrt{ln({ m bills entered})}+ln({ m hits}+1) ight] imes [1-({ m days of inactivity}/100)]

This logarithmic formula means that the more bills a user enters and the more hits the user receives, the less the user's score increases for each entered bill or new hit. Thus, a user's score does not increase as quickly when the user has entered many bills. The #1 user, [http://www.wheresgeorge.com/user_profile_popup.php?ukey=fd088869d1cf6c0a0d0d7b3c075f421c Wattsburg Gary] , has an Unofficial George Score of 1,591.51 (as of September 27, 2008), and was the first user to break the 1500-George-Score mark and the one-million hit mark. Gary has entered over 1,028,000 bills. [cite web |first = Hank| last = Eskin |url= http://www.wheresgeorge.com/top10users.php
title= Top Users Report |accessdate= 2008-08-27 |author= Where's George |language= English |quote=1. Wattsburg Gary 1,591.51 1,028,183 164,293 197,689 15.98%
]

Although there is a scoring system, the site makes it clear that this is not intended to be a contest. The site also prohibits marking bills and depositing them into financial institutions "en masse". [ [http://www.wheresgeorge.com/rules.php#7 User Guidelines/Terms of Service/Rules] , no. 7]

Community

"Where's George?" includes a community of users that interact via forums. They are divided into several categories, ranging from regional to new-member-help threads. Some members of the site also participate in gatherings, held in various cities around the United States. Several have become annual events, and can vary widely in scope and size. [cite web | last = Eskin | first = Hank | year = 2008| url = http://forums.wheresgeorge.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13| title = Unofficial Where's George?/Where's Willy? Gatherings|work=Where's George?/Where's Willy? Discussion| publisher = Wheres George? LLC.| accessdate = 2008-07-03]

Use in research

Although "Where's George?" does not officially recognize the bills that travel the farthest or fastest, some have approached it as a semi-serious way to track patterns in the flow of American cash.

Money flow displayed through Where's George was used in a 2006 research paper that described statistical laws of human travel in the United States, and developed a mathematical model of the spread of infectious disease resulting from such travel. The article is in the January 26, 2006 issue of the journal "Nature". [cite journal| last = Brockmann| first = D| authorlink = | coauthors = L. Hufnagel and T. Geisel| date = 2006-01-26| title = The scaling laws of human travel| journal = Nature| volume = 439| issue = | pages = 462–465| doi =10.1038/nature04292| pmid = 16437114| url =http://www.nld.ds.mpg.de/downloads/publications/Brockmann2006.pdf| accessdate = 2006-04-28] Researchers found that 57% of the nearly half a million dollar bills studied traveled between 30 miles and 500 miles over approximately nine months in the United States.cite news| author = Associated Press| title = Researchers' plan to track disease: follow 'Where's George' cash trail| work = Health and medicine| language = English| publisher = St. Petersburg Times| date = 2006-01-26| url = http://www.sptimes.com/2006/01/26/Worldandnation/Researchers__plan_to_.shtml| accessdate = 2008-07-16] There is a short clip of a Brockman presentation on the subject from the IdeaFestival on YouTube. [cite web|url= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfLB231KWUQ|title= Money Circulation Science|accessdate= 2007-10-17|last= Brockmann|first= Dirk|format= Flash|work= IdeaFestival 2007|publisher= YouTube.com]

References

ee also

*Currency bill tracking
*EuroBillTracker
*TrackGandhi
*Twenty Bucks - movie about the travels of a $20 bill
*Where's Willy?

External links

* [http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ Where's George? web site]
* [http://www.wheresgeorge.net/ Directory of Where's George related pages] - a wealth of information regarding Where's George
* [http://www.wosto.com/wgvm/ WG? Virtual Museum] - a collection of marked bill images.


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