Google’s Bacon Number: Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon

,

Someone at Google has had a bit of free time. Most people know about the famous “six degrees of separation” and how it applies to actors and Kevin Bacon. Well now you can worry no more about calculating that value yourself! Simply go to Google and type in “bacon number” followed by a celebrity’s name and you’ll get the full path to the person.

I had to try it myself and put in the following:

Now it’s not perfect, no results showed up for “Dalai Lama” or “Adolf Hitler”, but this is still something to use if you’re in a rush in a trivia game.

/0 Comments

Google Makes Your Memory Worse: The Google Effect

,

An unexpected side effect from using Google regularly. Apparently depending on the search engine to find results for questions you have can make you not prioritize retaining memories for information.

Read more

/0 Comments

Google Gaydar Now Active

,

Yes, that title is correct.  Google has not made any announcement that I’ve heard about regarding this, but you can actually type a query into the search engine to find out what Google’s “gaydar” has determined.

Here’s my test of the latest Google Gaydar functionality:

Google Gaydar

So there you have it.  Perhaps it’s accurate, perhaps it’s something one of the developers put in as an easter egg that got discovered, perhaps it’ll be gone tomorrow.  But for right now it’s yet another Google tool that can be used freely from your computer.

It’s probably still in beta, though.

/0 Comments

April Fool’s Day – YouTube 1911

,

So I was up late and had YouTube going.  Noticed a funky little button to the bottom right.  “1911?  What’s that mean?”  So I clicked it, of course.  And it’s awesome.  I highly recommend you try it out.  Especially their review on the best viral pictures from 100 years ago.

Just a quick post to give a notice of one of Google’s fun additions to their sites.  Aside from their open position for autocompleters, of course.

/0 Comments

Danny Sullivan is Funny

Not really much more to say than that. I found a post on his blog from not too long ago, and it cracked me up.  Even people outside of internet marketing might find it worth checking out.

/0 Comments

Google’s April Fools Pranks for 2010

,

So it’s April Fool’s Day.  And Google always has something good.  Apparently today they have announced that Google is no longer Google.  Is is now Topeka.  You can find out the details here, on their blog.

But all over the world, new things have arisen with Google.  In the UK, a video was put up on YouTube about their latest translation advances.  You can see the details of this amazing tool on the Google page here.  A similar tool is available in Japan.  Google Maps got an upgrade in Australia.

And I highly recommend going to Google Maps, use street view (drag the icon of the person onto a street), and you’ll see the latest advance in Google Maps technology.  Quite nice.

/0 Comments

iPod, meet iPad

This isn’t directly internet marketing related, but it’s something I know a lot of people have been waiting for.  The iPad (AKA the iTablet and other names).  It looks to be a cross between the iPod/iPhone, a laptop, and a television.  It’s thin, sits in your lap, and is full touch-sensitive.  Plus compatible with your old systems, so you can copy apps from the iPhone to the iPad to have them full-screen.

It looks like it might have good potential for a portable movie player with a substantially larger screen, has better use for eBooks, and the higher resolution makes everything a little easier to see, such as maps, your calendar, YouTube, not to mention web browsing.

The full announcement came today from Apple, so if you’re curious to learn more about it (as I still am), you can check out the official iPad page.

/0 Comments

Google Knows What Your Boyfriend/Girlfriend is Thinking

,

It’s not always dead on accurate, but by using Google in the right way you can often figure out what your significant other is interested in.  How?  By using what’s known as “predictive text”.  It’s the ability by Google (and Yahoo) to see what you’re typing in and try to predict what you might be looking for.  By only entering a few words in, you can often glean a lot of very interesting information.

For example, you can type in “how can I get my girlfriend to” and then let Google roll, see what it comes up with.  (Warning, even though it’s only text, it’s not all child-friendly content.)  Replace “girlfriend” with “boyfriend”, “wife”, “husband”, etc. and you have a new research tool.

Mind you, in many cases these results may not match at all with your significant other’s thoughts and desires, but it can still be fun to explore.  And for marketers, this is a gold mine.  These are the hot buttons that are looked for to prompt action by many marketers, and Google is just giving it to you.

If you want to see more detail and screenshots of examples of these, check out Vanessa Fox’s excellent article on Search Engine Land.

/0 Comments

Google New Year Easter Egg

,

Just a quick post – try going to Google and hitting the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button without entering a query.  You’ll see a big number pop up.  Google’s waiting for the new year!  I do wonder what will happen when that number reaches zero and you’re on the page.

Just a cool little easter egg.

/0 Comments