Posts Tagged ‘Google’

Google Refuses to Stop Making Great Videos

September 7, 2011

Queen’s frontman Freddie Mercury would have been 65 on Monday, and to celebrate GOOGLE tossed off (I say “tossed off” because this was probably completed by one of their high-functioning “synthetic emotions” algorithms) a typically amazing, energetic and poignant video set to the group’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

Who even thinks about Queen, or Freddie Mercury, that much these days? They’re like the music version of the movie Dave — you forget how great they are until one of their songs pops up on your iPod, and then it’s all you can listen to for days. Then you forget again.

But like a glasses-wearing elephant, GOOGLE DOESN’T FORGET. At this point the company is putting up Pixar numbers with these consistently perfect ads. So long as they never double-dip — say revisit the “American in Paris” commercial, only this time with more of the redneck sidekick — I can see this streak continuing in perpetuity. Great work, guys!

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A Momentary Break from Stupid Internet Crap

May 6, 2011

Last year GOOGLE interrupted a perfectly dry-eyed Super Bowl to air a heart-rending commercial about boundless Franco-American love, and in the process made me cry (Editor’s note: JK!). This Tuesday, stuffed into an episode of Glee, they released a new commercial that makes their former triumph look like Nazi propaganda.

There is almost nothing I can write here that Thought Catalog hasn’t already explored with more eloquence and understanding, but it bears (refocused) repeating:

The Internet, these days essentially a semi-anonymous microcosm of the larger physical world, can be a nasty place that seems infinite in its capacity for snark, artifice, and general bullshit. It’s like a horribly backwards Wild West, populated entirely by saloon owners and snake-oil salesman (and showgirls — PORN) with few lawmen around to keep the peace. The Dark Knight Rises costuming rumors and Perez Hilton doodles run wild in the town square, unchecked.

But every so often, a determined cowboy rides into town to redress this imbalance; to set things back on the side of the consequential, and good. Whether it’s Dan Savage and the “It Gets Better” campaign or Arab Spring social mobilization or something else, it’s a powerful reminder that in the best hands, this stupid network of chattering computers might actually do something to change the world.

“There’s art to be made…there are songs to be sung.”

I know I’m re-appropriating that message for an entirely different end, but it remains too true regardless.

In conclusion: let’s all make a pact right now to not let things like Charlie Sheen or Rebecca Black happen ever again. On 3…2…

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Posted in Editors' Picks, TV | 2 Comments »

April Fool’s: ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ in Holiday Form

April 1, 2011

It’s by now mid-day on the 1st of April, which means someone in your office has already dyed the water cooler orange and your homepage has been changed not twice, but eight times to Bieberfever.com. APRIL FOOL’S, Y’ALL! It’s as much in our DNA to prank each other as it is to breathe and urinate, which makes today something of a nationally cathartic experience. We don’t have to hide that part of ourselves, relegating it to chat rooms where we pretend to be hot younger women or fake “dude, my mom’s dead” rejoinders. (Pranked!) We can live our lives OUT LOUD.

But no group gets more out of today than nerds. Or more specifically, nerds who also program web content. (Within the hierarchy of nerds it should be noted that while all nerds are computer experts, some are more expert than others.) Ten and twenty years ago, the guys who are today responsible for everything you do online were getting their heads dunked in toilets and watching their lunch money disappear. “I swear, Mom, the money literally disappeared. What else do you want me to say?” Their moms would give them wedgies before sending them off to karate class, which helped nothing, and again before bed. “You need to learn to HIT BACK, Sergei!” said Mrs. Brin as she pulled and twisted, a look of bizarre pleasure on her face.

Keep reading!

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Posted in "News", Technocentricity | 2 Comments »

Are You Ready For Some [Kleenex]?

February 8, 2010

Come on. I spend two hours reminding myself how I should hate my girlfriend, buy moderately priced new cars to reassert my masculinity, and check out GoDaddy! for HOTTT Web-only videos…only to be utterly emotions-slapped by a GOOGLE commercial all about finding love in a foreign land. (And not aborting the baby — Tebow approves!) You made me cry, and now I’ve got to drink twice as much Budweiser Golden Wheat just to break even on the man scale. And probably buy stock in Doritos, too. I hate Doritos!

Your striking, poignant storytelling? It’s killing me. Fuck you, Don Draper.

Love,
Henning

PS – Those Volkswagen and Late Show ads you did were also pretty good. Grizzly Bear is totally this year’s Phoenix!

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Posted in Editors' Picks, TV | 4 Comments »

Google Tackles The Tough Questions

March 26, 2009

ebveryone knows Google. Like, everyone. Besides a terrible economic crisis and the Olympics, it’s the one banner behind which the entire world can unite. Who on this planet hasn’t Googled himself? Who hasn’t had a question about dog care or smell identification that needed a swift response? “No one” is the answer to THAT question, and a Google search would probably confirm as much. We are one world under GOOGLE. Amen.

Of course, we use the service to research some profoundly unusual things. Monkey drug dealers. Directions to the moon. Tree pornography. Under the invisibility cloak we call the Internet, we’re free to be as odd and curious as we want. (And we are one odd and curious world.) Thankfully Google is right there with us. Type in “is that a” for instance – just three words – and you’re given the following:

It's definitely a Sears poncho.

It's definitely a Sears poncho.

And that’s only the BEGINNING.

More fun with Google after the jump!

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Posted in Technocentricity | 4 Comments »