Ahhh.. One of my favorite times of the year is upon us. April Fools! The Googleplex has been notorious over the years for being the ultimate prankster in the internet realm! However, this year they’ve taken it up another notch.
Enter Google Racing. Google Racing is Google’s Nascar racing division, solely dedicated to the proliferation of automated vehicles! The attention to detail is incredible! The ten raised to the 100th power is the cherry on top of the cake. For those of you that don’t know what that references — Google means the 100th zero in a number sequence.
Don’t like the weather? Well, here’s your chance to change that! If you Google weather in your local city, you now have the option of customizing your weekly forecast. Just imagine — 11 degrees and heavy snow in Phoenix! I now have the luxury of seeing such a feat come to fruition!
Don’t like the current Earth or street view of Google Maps? How about an 8-bit, NES style map display! Introducing Google’s NES edition map feature.
You might be wondering why Google takes such pride in their yearly April Fools jokes. The answer is more interaction. Each one of the jokes has a business premise behind what product they wanted to push to an end user. For example, the 8-bit map joke had an advertisement for Google Places right underneath the main function. Google Racing wanted to bring more interaction to Google Plus via Nascar. They obviously needed Nascar’s permission to use their logos and create an entire site dedicated towards this joke. Not only was additional traffic being driven to their pages, but the entire world will be talking about these pranks. Myself included.
Nobody else in the world drives traffic to a certain location better than Google. Nobody. Then again, how difficult could it be considering they have the busiest website in the world 🙂
Well done, Googleplex. Hopefully, this April Fools joke will rekindle your innovative spirit to start innovating once again. The only joke since Eric Schmidt vacated his CEO spot has been your lack of innovation. Stagnant times for a company built on cutting edge software isn’t meant to be a long term trend. Better execution on new products, and potentially reengineering old product (Google Wave, Labs, etc) will get them back on track. When you’re one of the biggest companies in the world, you’re allowed to be a little bit complacent. However, there comes a point where enough is enough, and you start innovating once again.
I’m the biggest Google fanboy you’ll find, but I don’t like seeing complacency. As an admirer, I’m irritated. As a shareholder, I’m starting to become impatient. As for Android — I’m still in love!
Long live the Googleplex!
Signing off,
Miran Maric
We want to make sure the thing you’re looking for is on Google 100 percent of the time.
– Eric Schmidt
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