Agoracom Blog

Weekend Stuff – Colbert “Google Bombing” Is Funny and An Eye Opener

Posted by AGORACOM at 7:50 AM on Saturday, April 21st, 2007

Stephen Colbert is the funniest thing on TV since Johnny Carson. His combination of humour and pranks is second to none, including being banned by Wikipedia and affecting the outcome of online polls in small European countries (links within the main story below). 

His latest feat was to game Google by engaging in “Google Bombing” so that he would rank first for search results of “giant brass balls“.  Rather than explaining it all, I’ll let you read about it here because my real point to this post – besides givingyou some great weekend funny reading – is the fact that any concerted group of average people can still outsmart the most sophisticated algorithms and systems.  One can argue that Stephen Colbert is a rare example because he hosts a very popular show with millions of viewers – but here are a couple of examples of gaming the Google system by ordinary netizens.

Colbert’s Google bombing was both funny and an eye opener.  Hopefully most future cases will continue to be motivated by the need to make the rest of us laugh.

Best,
George

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