The Smarmy Carny

Google is giving away $10 Million through Project 10¹⁰⁰ (pronounced as "Project 10 to the 100th"). The money will go to fund between one and five ideas that will help humanity in a great way.

The guidelines are extremely loose for this project: They would prefer submissions in one of the following eight categories: Community, Opportunity, Energy, Environment, Health, Education, Shelter, and "Everything Else" . . . So even if your idea doesn't fit into the seven extremely vague categories, they are still willing to accept it.

Sure, those very basic guidelines are great and leave it open to your own creativity, but what sort of idea are they really looking for? The example Google offers to us is the Hippo Water Roller, which essentially looks like one of those heavy rollers used to even out landscaping, but filled with healthy drinking water. This allows people who have to transport their water supply to easily roll 24 gallons of water at a time, compared with a 5 gallon bucket of water on top of the head.

You can upload an ancillary video to YouTube to help you express or display your idea, but the meat of the presentation must be filled out via the web form. Google has put out a video presentation for their project:

How many people could your idea help?

All you need to do is submit your idea via the website before October 20, 2008. The submissions are reviewed and on January 27, 2008, 100 ideas will be voted on by the general public/Webosphere. The top 20 submissions will then pass to an advisory board, who will choose between one and five ideas, which will split the $10 Million prize equally.

For those looking to get rich from their ideas, you might want to look elsewhere. As the site's FAQ says:

Q: What do I get if my idea is chosen?
A: You get good karma and the satisfaction of knowing that your idea might truly help a lot of people.

The $10 Million is not going to the people who come up with these ideas. The money is going toward the development of these ideas to help make them a reality.

If coming up with a great idea to help the world just isn't your "thing", you can always try to win the $30 Million Lunar X Prize that Google has also posted. For that prize, you'll have to do a lot more than come up with ideas, though. $30 Million goes to the first team to send a robot to the moon, have that robot travel 500 meters along the moon's surface, and receive back video, image, and data transmissions here on Earth. You might want to hurry on that offer, though: 13 of the teams have been working on this since September 13, 2007, so you've got some catch-up to do!

One entertaining game that can easily waste an hour of your day is Guess the Google. Head over to the site and click "Launch Project" to play.

In Guess the Google, you play 20 rounds. In each round, 20 pictures appear. What they have in common is that they are the results for a Google Image search on a particular word. You have 20 seconds to guess that word. You get a bonus point for each unused second left after you guess the word.

This is a fun little game. I've come back to it a few times and still enjoy it. Perhaps in a couple weeks I will post about a similar set of Google-based games that require two-player competitive/collaborative efforts.

Click to add calendar

I took some time and created a 2006 World Cup match listing that you can add to your own calendar. If you already have a Google Calendar account set up, just click on this link and you should be all set. The 2006 FIFA World Cup – Updated Bracket Details calendar includes only the bracket games from the Round of 16 and on. As teams are decided, the calendar will be updated.

If you don't already use Google Calendar, it's time to consider it. If you already have a Gmail or Google account, just head to the Google Calendar page and sign right up.

Google Calendar is one of the cleanest, easiest online calendars out there. And because it's online, you can access it from wherever you want. You can access the calendar from calendar.google.com, from your customized Google homepage, from your cell phone, or from Google Desktop. If you use Gmail, dates that appear in your correspondence bring up links on the right column for easy addition to your Google Calendar. (This feature works with varying degrees of success.) Another great feature is that you can create a calendar and share it with the world or with just your friends. There are plenty of other features that you'll have to find on your own.

Google has been adding increasingly more special results to the top of their results. This results box that appears at the top of your search results is called OneBox. An amazing number of searches pull up some sort of information to attempt to immediately answer any specific information you might be searching for.

Go ahead: Search "5 + 4" and see what happens.

Here are some of the many searches that utilize Google OneBox. Search formats are in bold. I have included example searches in parentheses and quotations if you'd like to try a search yourself.

• [misspelled word] ("independant") — Google suggests the proper spelling for the word.
• [calculation] ("600 * 150" or "sqrt(-16)" or "pi" or "16 oz in cups" or "0.89 cad/liter in usd/gallon" or "10 pounds * 4000 feet in calories" or "2006 in roman numerals") — Calculates the result and/or conversion
• [phone number] ("320-693-6651") — Phone book result, address, and maps to that address if you have searched a listed number.
• [ticker symbol] ("mmm") — Various information on the stock, including the stoke quote, company name, links to various financial sites, current price, highs, lows, and a chart.
• [zip code/city name/area code] ("90210" or "beverly hills") — Links to view a map of the area via Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and MapQuest.
• [area code] ("212") — Link to an area code map for the selected area. Also informs you of the major city in that area code.
• [address1] to [address2] ("1600 pennsylvania avenue 20006 to 350 fifth avenue 10118") — Supplies driving directions via the same three mapping sites.
• [city1] [city2] ("boston sacramento") — Fields to enter departure and return dates, along with links to various airline sites.
• [airport code] airport ("jfk airport") — Link to current airport conditions and delays.
• [airline] [flight number] ("united 7") — Links to information on flight status
• [amount] [currency1] in [currency2] ("500 usd in gbp") — Currency converter
• [current movie title] — Shows runtime, MPAA rating, user ratings, and offers a search box to find showings near your zip.
• Including other keywords give you certain information about words, locations, etc. Try these out for size. The results for these are fairly obvious, so I won't explain them.
  • define [word]
  • winner [super bowl; stanley cup] — You don't get to pick which year is displayed, which is disappointing. How well this works to begin with is questionable.
• Here are even more keywords to use alongside locations. If you want to find out about a country, state, or city, these all should work well:
  • capital [location]
  • population [location]
  • president [location]
  • weather [location]
  • time [location]
  • state [bird/flower] [state] ("state bird new jersey") — Some states (NY) give you a state beverage if you ask.
• patent [number] ("patent 4825111")
• [tracking number] — Works with tracking numbers for the USPS, UPS, and FedEx
• [UPC number] ("718908094075")
• [obscure number] — You can also enter VINs, FAA airplane registration numbers, and FCC equipment IDs. FCC IDs need to be prefaced with "fcc".
• Where was [person] born? ("where was weird al born")
• Who is buried in Grant's tomb?
• What is the answer to life the universe and everything? — If you don't already know the answer to this question, then you won't find this funny.
• What is the average airspeed of an unladen swallow?
• How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
• How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Additionally, Google SMS has additional features you can use on the site, or text message from your phone to get a response from anywhere. Here are some additional keywords that don't seem to work from the normal Google search, but already work on Google SMS:

• translate [english word/phrase] in [language] ("translate dog in spanish") -or- translate [foreign word/phrase] from [language] ("translate perro from spanish") — This will give you a basic translation service to or from the English language.
• [city name/address] to [city name/address] — Supplies driving directions between locations
• [sports team] — Gives recent score and upcoming game information. Try the team name ("lakers") or the city combined with the league ("nhl detroit"). There's no news or off-season information, just scores.

If you have additional Google OneBox responses that aren't listed here, please comment so that I can add them!

I finally received an invitation to Google Analytics!

Google Analytics, much like Performancing Metrics, tells you about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site.

Google Analytics is on a "sign up and wait" system in order to keep their servers under control. Finally, my number came up.

For many, this allows marketing masterminds to "focus their marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve their site to convert more visitors." For me, it just lets me pour over statistics, which I love to do.

Besides, it's always nice to know that people sometimes actually visit the site and read it and click links.

Google Maps now has detailed satellite imagery of European hotspots. Here are three posted by Google to get you started:

• Eiffel Tower
• Olympiastadion – Berlin
• Grand Canal – Venice

Also, be sure to check out my extensive list of Google Maps U.S. pictures and links from a year ago.

Googlism determines what Google thinks of a person, thing, place, or time. It then returns a list of who/what/when/where something is.

For instance, you can search to see who Google thinks Novac is. Check out the results for Google's answer to "Who is Novac?"

• Novac is all that and much more
• Novac is very proud of the many nationally recognized artists and media projects that have been developed at their center
• Novac is one of the largest clubs in the league
• Novac is the bounty hunter introduced in the second act hired by peagan for the sole purpose of capturing joy and luring cliff
• Novac is no ordinary man of wealth
• Novac is the proud recipient of a 1998 silver georgie award for excellence in a residential renovation under $50
• Novac is 8
• Novac is powered by acting world
• Novac is currently head of the plasma laboratory
• Novac is a testimony to the nightmare
• Novac is going through some dramatic rethinking
• Novac is sworn to secrecy
• Novac is leading the introduction of the rapid tooling process of sprayforming in europe
• Novac is suddenly struck by a ricochet and slumps to the floor

Go ahead and find out what Google thinks about you. Your full name may not work, so try your first name as an alternative. Then find out what Google thinks of your friends, your enemies, your hometown, your favorite bands, your favorite restaurants, your favorite foods, etc.