AUTHOR'S NOTE: WhoKnowsMeBest.com is no longer a viable website. I have provided links to all active sites mentioned in this article.

e. It’s everyone’s favorite topic. Myself, Number One, Yours Truly. Toby Keith was even witty enough to sing about it in "I Wanna Talk about Me." Any story is a thousand times more interesting when you are the main character. But are people really listening to you when you talk? Would your best friend remember that you look best in yellow and not in black? Does your boyfriend even know the name of that crazy bitch from work you always complain about? Well, three lads from Edmonton, Alberta have found a way to clear all this up. WhoKnowsMeBest.com is the brainchild of Tim Grover, Brady Orydzuk and Lorne Guse. Under their self-run web-design and e-commerce company, Smart Willy (Silly Willy’s more astute brother), these three Canadians have created a way for you to "put your friends to the test."

The process couldn’t be simpler. Users are given the choice between five pre-made tests: the Bare Facts Test, the Get Your Boyfriend in Trouble Test, the Get Your Girlfriend in Trouble Test, the Kinda Sexual Test and the Personality Test. Or they can also make up their own test from scratch by creating up to ten questions, each with four multiple-choice answers. The tests are sent to friends and family via e-mail. Anyone scoring 50% or above passes. Then users can compare the results from all their friends and figure out who truly knows them best.

I received my first test one Friday morning from my good friend Jason. Or at least, I thought we were good friends. I scored a pathetic 30% on his test. That’s okay though. He only scored 20% on mine. I really took my time thinking up some good quality questions. I ended up missing my train and getting to work a half-hour late but it was worth it. Originally I was worried that I’d be annoying my friends, making them think that this was just another one of those lame dime-a-dozen surveys. But, to my surprise, people who had never so much as forwarded a joke were taking my test and creating their own.

Apparently, this was a common scenario. Within ten days of its launch back in early January, the site received over 8.8 million hits. Says Tim, "We had a bet the day we launched. I bet 1500 people would visit. Brady bet 500 and Lorne bet 250. After the first week we were at about 200 so Lorne won the bet and we were all a little disappointed. By the end of the next week, almost 30,000 unique visitors were using the site every day! Now I want my money back."

WhoKnowsMeBest bills itself as an "Idea Virus," which according to Brady is "an idea that spreads rapidly – and grows exponentially – among users who come into contact with it." This particular idea turned into a debilitating case of the flu. The first day, Tim, Brady and Lorne sent tests to only forty friends – no strangers. By the end of February, their databases were ready to explode. "If the growth had continued, after ten more days, we would have been close to about 20-million hits a day... Our database was not designed to handle that kind of volume. [WhoKnowsMeBest] was affecting the performance of sites that belong to our paying clients." Reluctantly, the Smart Willy guys had to pull WhoKnowsMeBest off-line.

"After we closed [the site] we got emails from people begging us to bring it back." Unfortunately, servers and software cost money. But the Smart Willy team was determined. "The site is just too much fun," says Tim. After less than two weeks of downtime, WhoKnowsMeBest.com went back up on March 7^th. The site is still free and, for now is being funded out of the creators’ own pockets.

So if you’ve seen one too many surveys asking questions like "Do you eat the stems of broccoli?" take a few minutes and ask the questions you really want answered. You may be surprised to find out who has actually been paying attention when you talk. Tim, Brady and Lorne hope that WhoKnowsMeBest.com will really take off. "It’s so fun… Simple but fun. It helps people spend more time thinking about each other. We’re kind of proud of that." And indeed, the site will be forcing husbands and boyfriends across the globe to start thinking about anniversaries, special moments, likes and dislikes and any number of things they never ever thought they'd be tested on. Brady confesses, "We’re pretty sure someone is getting dumped as a result of WhoKnowsMeBest."

Hm… maybe we should hope for that database to explode after all.