Best of google 2011

• Google spent a goodly amount of
time this year playing tricks on
readers and amusing them with
gags, Easter eggs, fake videos and
Web pages, and, of course, the
famous interactive Doodles.

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• Google, the Jokester
• Google is full of nerds who are also
kind of funny. Don't believe me?
Just take a look at this past year,
which was full of Google games,
hoaxes, Doodles, and other fun
tidbits. Here are several of our
favorites.

Interactive Doodle: Jules Verne
Google's Doodlers came up with
this interactive CSS3 Doodle to
celebrate the 183rd birthday of
famed French sci-fi author Jules
Verne. This Doodle allowed users
to navigate the Nautilus "20,000
Leagues Under the Sea," using the
little navigation lever on the right
side. If you happened to be using a
device with an accelerometer (such
as a tablet), you were also able to
navigate by tilting your device.
Pretty cool.


Search Fun: Do a Barrel Roll
Here's a fun Google search Easter
egg: Type "do a barrel roll" into
the Google search box (you'll need
to type it into the actual box on
www.google.com, unless you're
using Google Chrome), and press
Enter. Your entire search results
page will "do a barrel roll," in
tribute to the popular Nintendo 64
game Star Fox 64. If you have
Instant Search turned on, your
page will do the barrel roll when
you get to the end of "barrel."


April Fool: Gmail Motion
This year's U.S. April Fools' joke
from Google was Gmail Motion.
According to the video, all you had
to do was log in to your Gmail
account on a computer with a built-
in webcam. Once you enabled Gmail
Motion in the settings menu, Gmail
would supposedly be able to track
your every movement, using
advanced spatial tracking tech.
Just kidding!


April Fool, Chinese Edition: Google
Teleportation
What's that? You're not
particularly interested in
controlling your email using your
body? That's okay, because if you
were in China on April Fools' Day
this year, you didn't get to
experience the hoax that was
Gmail Motion. Instead you got
something way cooler:
teleportation. Yes, Google China
invented teleportation, through
search that would let users
"perceive" everything they wanted
to "perceive."


Search Fun: A Google a Day...
On April 12, Google launched a new
"game" called A Google a Day. It's
a puzzle that you can solve by
using Google search. Each day you
get a question and the Google
search box. You then use your
search-savvy to find the answer,
and enter it in the answer box. If
you're wrong, you'll see hints and
tips on how to find the answer.


Street View Gags: Naked Floridian
Okay, so Google isn't really
responsible for the crazy stuff its
Street View camera captures. I
suppose I should give the credit
for this "gag" to the Miami woman
who decided to hang out on her
front porch in the nude while cars
were driving by. The lady's dignity
has since been preserved via a
"pixelation shroud," after The
Smoking Gun pointed out the pic in
September.


Interactive Doodle: Turkey Eggs
This year's Thanksgiving Google
Doodle featured a paper-and-
feather hand turkey with
interchangeable feathers, shoes,
and hats. As fun as the
customizable turkey was, it was
also rife with Easter eggs: Twelve
different feather-and-accessory
combinations made the turkey
come alive. The animations
included an astronaut, a pirate, a
princess, a nerd, and a…white box.


Hoax: Comic Sans for Everyone
Earlier this year, Google "announced"
Comic Sans for Everyone. According
to Google, after "rigorous testing of
41 different fonts," one font
"consistently outperformed all others
when it comes to user satisfaction,
level of engagement, understanding
web content, productivity, click-
through rates and conversion rates:
Comic Sans." Google then said it
would be rolling out Comic Sans as
the default font across all Google
products.

This was a joke, of course, and I'm
pretty sure that Comic Sans is the
only font that inspires people to
throw their monitors across the
room. That said, Google did roll out a
Google Chrome extension called
Comic Sans for Everyone--just in
case you need an excuse to buy a new
monitor.


Search Fun: Gay Rainbow
Here's another search trick that
came about this year: If you
searched for "gay" in the Google
search box in June, a little rainbow
flew out of the search button.
This trick debuted (and retired) in
June, which is Gay and Lesbian
Pride Month.


Google Gag: Chromercise
Google's "Chromercise" page is a
gag site that asks whether you
want to increase your hands'
"STRENGTH and DEXTERITY
while browsing the web FASTER
and fitting into sleeker, SEXIER
gloves."

The site features a video of hands
wearing workout "clothes" and
doing '80s exercise-video
movements. For a limited time,
Google also gave away free Chrome
finger sweatbands.


Interactive Doodle: Les Paul's
Guitar
To mark the birthday of the
electric guitar creator, Les Paul,
Google created an interactive
guitar Doodle. The Doodle was not
only strummable, but it also had a
record button so that users could
capture their tunes and then share
them via a unique link.

The Doodle was created in HTML
5, JavaScript, and the Flash plug-
in so that it would be compatible
with all browsers. It now has a
permanent home on Google's site.


XKCD: The Future According to
Google Search Results
Here's another item that Google
doesn't get credit for. "The
Future According to Google
Search Results" comes from the
XKCD Web comic. XKCD compiled
the list by searching on several
terms and noting the first Google
search result to come up for each
phrase (such as "By <YEAR>" and
"By the Year <YEAR>"). The full
list is pretty long (it goes from
2012 to 2101), so take a look for
yourself.


AdWords Gag: Google Blimp Ads
Google's AdWords are all over the
Web--and this joke put them all
over the skies, as well. In March,
Google "announced" Google Blimp
Ads--gBlimps that would "take to
the skies," displaying AdWords ads
to larger audiences than ever
before. gBlimps would reportedly
display existing AdWords ads in
their original format. The fake
effort even "quoted" a made-up
grandmother of seven saying that
AdWords are "so clear on a big
blimp."


Game: Angry Birds as a Web App
Those of you who hate downloads--
and green pigs--are in luck: Google
made Rovio's popular mobile game
into a Web app. You can download
the game as a Chrome application,
or you can just play it on
chrome.angrybirds.com (Chrome
isn't necessary). It's a real-time,
multimedia, cross-platform HTML
5 app.


Autocompleter Job
If you use Google search at all, you
know about autocomplete--the
feature that "completes" your
search terms for you, based on
popular searches. Well, did you
know that the autocomplete
feature is backed by human labor?

That's right: In April of this year
Google posted a job opening for an
"Autocompleter." Not sure if you
want to be an Autocompleter?
Check out this video testimony
from a "real" Google
Autocompleter! He knows all the
words to all the songs ever made--
all of them.


Google Earth Clock
Google Earth Clock may not be an
Easter egg, but it is pretty cool--
it's a third-party website that
assembles a clock based on Google
Earth images. Each image comes
from a picture of Google Earth
that naturally (at least, "naturally"
in Google Earth) looks like a
number. And you don't get just the
same photo over and over--the
photos are constantly refreshing,
zooming in from the full-Earth
view to a new photo of the number
every few seconds.


Mobile Tilt Easter Egg
Google's Tilt Easter egg seems to
be a warm-up for the "Do a Barrel
Roll" Easter egg that appeared in
April. If you search Google for
tilt, tilted, or askew on your
smartphone, you'll notice things
get a little off kilter. --Tom Spring

Image credit: Tripadvisor.com


Zombie Gingerbread Easter Egg
Google doesn't stop at hiding
Easter eggs in its desktop
products--they're also in its
mobile software, Android. In
Gingerbread (Android 2.3.3), you
can find an illustration of a zombie
gingerbread man hanging out with
the Android robot, if you know
where to look. Go to Settings,
About Phone and tap the Android
version number several times. The
zombie art, by Jack Larson, will
appear after several taps.

Image credit (zombie): Flickr user
danhollisterduck

Image credit (Easter egg): User
teknoraver at XDA-Developers


Nyandroid ICS Easter Egg
Google's latest version of Android,
Ice Cream Sandwich, hasn't
officially dropped, but developers
have already discovered an Easter
egg. Here's how to see it: Go to
Settings, About Phone and tap the
Android version several times in a
row. A little Android will appear.
Long-press on the Android, and
he'll get bigger--until he gives way
to tons of tiny Androids zooming
across your screen, Nyan-Cat
style.


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