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April 12, 2011

A Google a Day

Google launched a site that shows a puzzle which can be solved using Google Search. "A Google a Day is a new daily puzzle that can be solved using your creativity and clever search skills on Google. Questions will be posted every day on agoogleaday.com and printed on weekdays above the New York Times crossword puzzle," informs Google's blog. Some may say it's just a way to increase Google's market share in the US, now that Bing is increasingly popular. Microsoft also used games to attract more users, so it's not a new idea. Unlike Microsoft's Club Bing, there's no monetary incentive to solve Google's puzzles.


"A Google a Day" was created by Daniel Russell, a Googler who has a great blog about web search. "For the past several years I've been trying to put together some kind of game that would engage people in a playful way to learn how to search. After many trials, we FINALLY got one version of the Search Game out into the world! AGoogleADay.com is a simple game that poses a daily search puzzle for you to solve. The game starts today (Monday April 11, 2011) and will run for the next four weeks with each day's puzzle getting harder from Monday through Friday. The secret agenda here is to get people to play around with search and to learn all they can do. I've felt for a while like Goggle gives people intergalactic hyperdrive starship capabilities, but most people only explore the shallows by paddling around with their shuttlecraft," notes Daniel.

The most interesting thing about Google's new site is that it uses an index called Deja Google which leaves out recent web pages. "To keep the game interesting for everyone, we created Deja Google – a wormhole inspired time machine that searches the Internet as it existed before the game began. Because nobody wants someone's recent blog post about finding an answer spoiling their fun."

Until Deja Google becomes a standalone service, you can use agoogleaday.com to remove recent pages from the results and to search Google's index from April 5. You can also bookmark this URL: http://www.google.com/webhp?esrch=Agad::Public&nord=1.

12 comments:

  1. what the hell, no place to enter the answer, meh

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  2. Great -- our firewall blocks it as a game site!?

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  3. Somebody doesn't have enough to do......

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  4. is april 8 morse code
    cjlvll@live.com

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  5. April 16th answer is wrong. It was not John Selman Jr., but his father--John Selman, Sr.

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  6. hey guys all the answers are here inside the google only .. I didn't Search the google I just search the html code and in that Google included a JavaScript which had the questions as well as the answers LOLZZ.. here is the link enjoy

    http://www.google.com/landing/agad/js/agaddata.js

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  7. @darkrishabh Yes you can look at the answer on that JS file then enter the answer and submit. You are correct! of course, but that is cheating and not challenging at all.

    But anyway, thanks for the link. :)

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  8. how would you report a wrong answer

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  9. how might one submit challenges to a-google-a-day?

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  10. the question of the day has stopped advancing - it's stuck on the question about the anemone from April 7th. Is it just me? how can I make it advance to today?
    Faith

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  11. 9/8/12 is wrong. All the sources I found say that Madonna changed costumes 85 times in Evita.

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  12. Today there were 2 wrong answers. 2/3! I'm a high schooler and I feel like I could do this better than whoever they put in charge of checking answers. I have come across a wrong answer about 50% of the time I go to googleaday. Just flat out wrong. Today for example the first question was "Which phylum of the gymnosperms includes only a single living species?" The answer is "Ginkgo" THAT IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE ANSWER. When I show the first letter it is in fact a "G". The hint is maidenhair, which, surprise surprise, is a Ginkgo. The ONLY Ginkgo, in fact. I guess whoever put in the answer must've misspelled it, but I fail to see how someone who's job it is to create google related questions, wouldn't at least google it themselves first to see what the correct spelling is. Please google, let me take the wheel. I could do this job 99% than the ape you have operating it right now. You should see how may complaints there are about wrong answers out there. I'd fire this guy.

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