Haochi Chen is a Columbus Ohio teenager... He's 17 now... I believe Haochi is a junior in high school. Are you familiar with Techmeme?   I was browsing through  Techmeme today and I recognized Haochi Chen's name... and the name of his blog "Googlified."  Haochi Chen is a Google enthusiast.

Here's the blurb for Haochi's post from Techmeme:

"  Haochi / Googlified: Google Digg-Style Experiment  -  Google Experimental is currently running an experiment that allows some selected users to "influence [the] search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results."  -  On a result page, you can choose move a search result to the top by clicking ... Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket "

I first heard of Haochi when he found a vulnerability in gmail at the end of 2006.  I believe it was over the New Years Holiday that he notified Google of the vulnerability..  I wrote about Haochi Chen on my Discover Columbus blog in early 2007:

"CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation)  said : "The vulnerability was discovered by 16-year-old Haochi Chen of Columbus, Ohio, who reported it on his Googlified blog on Dec. 30." 

Reading Google Digg-Style Experiment on Googlified it sounds like it is a private beta and Haochi is one of the experimenters...

What is Techmeme?  Techmeme desribes itself:

At this moment, the next big story in technology may reside on a blog you've never heard of or a news site you "don't have time to scan. So I built a software agent to surface these links in real time and the result is Techmeme, the site you're visiting now.

Coverage is driven by a mix of industry insiders, passionate independents, and established journalists. So Techmeme gets the story no matter where it appears, and often days before it hits major sites." 

Emphasis on passionate independents is mine.. I believe Haochi Chen could be considered a passionate independent! Maybe he's been on Techmeme before and I missed it, a lot of it is way over my head. Maybe Haochi on Techmeme all the time... maybe Techmeme is 1/3 very smart high school kids like Haochi....

Photo credit:  Photo of the Columbus Ohio Skyline Photo above is from Wikipedia.  "Skyline of Columbus, Ohio Photo shot by Derek Jensen (Tysto), 2006-01-23  I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible:I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law."  Thanks Derek