Tips #86-92


The culture of the Internet has its own sense of humor - a Monty Python, Tom Lehrer, Terry Pratchett-esque sense of humor. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Google and the Google API have been used for a variety of silly, weird, and just plain strange search applications.

Having fun with search engines isn't a new thing. See http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~andrewm/misc/segames/ for a whole page of search engine games - including a search engine drinking game, believe it or not. Search engine users have also discovered that searching for certain phrases in Google can lead to interesting results. And earlier this year, the idea of "Google bombing" - groups linking to sites using pre-agreed upon descriptions to boost that site in Google's search results - became so prevalent that rumor has it that Google took steps to prevent the practice affecting the listings in its index.

If you've got a sense of humor but no sense of programming, don't worry; you can pull some decent pranks and have a little fun without writing a line of code. Of course, if you're using the Google API, you've the coding power to add punch and complexity to your pranks and pratfalls.

Let's have a little fun!