55 Ways To Have Fun with Google

Reviewed by Dr. Eric Flescher

I like Google, Google Earth and the other tools as do many others. So when I received the book and saw the title, I had a hunch this might be an interesting read to describe Google and whether they found it useful to “shell out” $20 to read related Google information. As I read information on the cover “ a cabinet of search engine curiosities, riddles, games, and a little bit of usefulness,” I wondered how useful could the 55 ways be? I found out to many some and to most a lot.

The author is known for his (if it is so wildly popular how come I never heard of it) Blogoscoped (http://blog.outer-court.com/). Basically this book is a compendium of notes and ideas posted from his blog since 2003.

As I started this process, I did notice the index listed by number. But what I really though about but there wasn’t any was an index of categories that there are many times in blogs. Browsing through I could see small cartoons, screenshots of google and curious ways to feed google into your Internet workings on a daily basis. As I rummaged through the book, I tried first to find ideas that would be useful for me and just not idle stuff that was not immediately useful.

I found ideas that I would not be interested in, like several Google Games (#2 Snake Game, #4 the Google Irritation Game and #5 Googling Proverbs). Other ideas were not particularly new to me #8 Browsing Images of a Site, #8 What is Google and what do I consider fun about it?, and #9 How much item Google Saves Us. Then I found one I could love.

#10 Google Cookin’ a Lemon Chicken is an interesting take off on how to find other recipes in the internet world. While I already have thousands of recipes logged there are still more to find. This includes dozens of recipe sites bookmarked as well as the food channel etc.,with hundreds of recipes I want to try and have tried. I still found this tidbit of information, this “idea” a possible way to use google in the future.

I found out what #32 Googlebombing is (I won’t tell, you will have to find out on your own), #33 Google Ads Gone Wrong, #37 What Googlefights , #55 Googledromes and the many Google parodies. By that time, I found it was easier to find and search for the titles for the ideas better by thumbing through to find the page numbers of the ideas in the index as opposed to finding the numbers of the ideas.

Conclusion
I am sure that I will found some really interesting aspects in this book as time goes on. But for now I have not found any I can’t live without and sparked my imagination to go wild. But then again, I have used Google Earth, Google (I have known how to use search engines the right way since the 90’s before Google) and exploring on the internet for many years.

Recommendation
For the novice “Googlers ” I think it is helpful and might expand your ideas how to find and search for information on the Internet. The book has some interesting ideas for many. Whether it t is worth $20 I am not so sure. Look it over in the bookstore first and then decide. This book may help you find enough of the 55 way to make it worth your while.