There’s some strange text on billboards around New York. I passed these four this weekend:
THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS
THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
THE ALGORITHM IS BANNED IN CHINA
THE ALGORITHM IS FROM JERSEY
It’s clearly a viral marketing campaign and seems to be by Ask.com. I like puzzles like this, but at the moment it doesn’t seem to go anywhere — if you Google it, you just get blogs talking about the odd billboards. That’s not really very much fun.
It occurs to me that the sort of people who would be curious enough to go to Google and type them in are probably the sort of people who would like xkcd, so maybe we should create a twist in the puzzle. For those of you who have blogs or other sites, feel free to create links to xkcd.com with those billboard lines as the link text. I put the phrases at the bottom of xkcd.com so it won’t be filtered out as a Googlebomb.
xkcd 
Hey it’s workin’
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=+THE+ALGORITHM+CONSTANTLY+FINDS+JESUS
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We seem to be winning… first on each except for “THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS”, where we’re third. And that’s quotes or no quotes for all four.
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Excellent! Thanks to ask.com for the free publicity!
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Hijacking a viral marketing campaign. Adorable.
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This is really really cool. Sadly, we’ve fallen to 3rd and 4th on some of them.
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Done, I like pranks like these. ‘The algorithm killed Jeeves’ is a link on my main page.
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Saw one on the Major Deegan last week. I’ll pass it again tomorrow morning and update.
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The muteKi is the algorithm. Without The muteKi, there is no algorithm.
The muteKi is not from Jersey.
I don’t get why anyone would have thought this would be a good ad campaign. Practically nobody is using ask.com to find out information about this.
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added all four to my lj link list. good luck in your quest!
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In a way, we’re showing one of the weaknesses of Google, in that it can be subverted like this. Is Ask subject to this kind of joke? Or is it just that no one ever bothered…
Either way, kudos.
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You got it. Done and done.
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Roger that.
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Personally, I view it as a STRENGTH of Google. You have a group of people who determine that this phrase is more relevant to the phrase than whatever else is ahead of it, and are working to fix that. Just look at the blag entry. We feel that the people who search for this phrase are more likely to be geeks, and interested in this comic. The ‘viral marketing’ scheme is poorly thought out for ask.com, and is better suited for xkcd. As a result, because fewer people feel the need to relate that term to ask.com than they do xkcd.com, xkcd.com is returned first.
It’d be like going around, asking people what “The algorithm constantly find jesus” means, and throwing out the answers of people who don’t know. It’s better than ignoring people who answer in a way you think might be somewhat snarky, because sometimes there’s value in snarky answers.
Also, I like the word snarky.
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Yeah. Snarky IS a fun word…
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Indeed. Snarky is an excellent word.
And I suppose I see the point. But what I want to know, I guess, is why the ad campaign was so poorly thought out. You’d think there are people like us working for Ask.com, or they’d have gone under years ago. There had to be people who understood that people aren’t going to put those phrases together and think “search engine”, and that people like us would hijack the idea.
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In Soviet Russia, YOU find the Algorithm.
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xkcd is now the first ghit for “the algorithm is”.
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THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
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We need reinforcement on the “The algorithm killed Jeeves” front, but otherwise we’re at number 1 it seems.
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Constantly finds Jesus (no quotes) comes up as third on Google.
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The xkcd blog post is absolutely right. I found the xkcd.com site simply because I got intrigued about the ask.com billboard ads and googled it landing me on this site.
But I still don’t understand the ads. Those ads must cost Ask.com a lot of money. But what do they want the viewers of those ads to do? How does Ask.com expect those ads to make money for them? If they want more viewers to use Ask.com, they should at least put Ask.com on the ads or soemthing.
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Ask must have hired “The Apprentice” staff to manage their viral division. Their viral marketing is transparently corporate, stupid, and not very viral. I’ve only seen one halfway decent corporate viral campaign and it never gained much traction – http://shaveeverywhere.com/ (Phillips pimping a razor for Christmas that gives guys an extra “optical inch”)
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Done! Brilliant.
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With regard’s to Steve’s comment, I think Cyan’s espionage stuff for Riven back in the late 90s and their ARG for the first (botched) URU launch back in 2003 were pretty cool marketing, but probably not “viral” per se.
But they were certainly more interesting to me (as a person already invested in the product) than an ad saying “Hey! Buy this!” (Or, in Ask.com’s case, “try this!”).
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Am I the only one who thinks it’s funny that there’s a billboard suggesting that someone killed a butler?
AN ALGORITHM A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY
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I haven’t seen these biilboards, because I’m not american, but I find this interesting because I read a book some time ago where one main character programmed some kind of super algorithm that could be used to make awesome search engine. After I saw this here that came back to my mind.
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Done @ 7:00AM EST
Your Tied with O’Reilly at Alexa
2:56PM.
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I saw these ads a few days ago in a BART station. “The algorithm killed Jeeves,” “The unabomber hates the algorithm,” and one other that I don’t recall. At first I planned to Google it, but then I made the Jeeves connection. I associate Jeeves with the original “Jeeves and Wooster” book and PBS series, so it threw me. But as I sat there, waiting for my connection, I made the connection that there was an “Ask Jeeves” search engine, so the point was probably that some other, stronger search algorithm had replaced Ask Jeeves.
I did not know that “Ask.com” even existed. And when I finally thought to prove my hypothesis, I Googled “The Algorithm” and received a lot of links to mathmatical sites. So from my point of view, the ad campaign was a complete and utter failure. Curious as to whether others thought so, I did some more Googling, and got pointed here.
Well met!
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Incidentally, xkcd is also number one for “THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESU”, for all of you Christians out there who are just terrified of going to extra mile. Or letter.
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My contribution.
LOVE IS THE ALGORITHM THE ALGORITHM IS DEATH
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I posted it on my MySpace and Facebook blogs. Doing my part for the information revolution!
We can hijack that name too.
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For THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES, xkcd is the fifth result on ask.com. I just don’t get what they’re trying to do.
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This is not the algorithm, this is SPAAAAARTA!
…I had to.
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Remember back a few years, when the geeks tried to stop the internet from being commercialized?
It just occurred to me that this could be the root.
All advertising is based on catch phrases!
The question now is, do we still want to do battle with the corporations?
Much of the recent and foreseeable development is good, in my opinion.
With out the good cause (xkcd), it seems pointless.
Choosing especially loathsome advertising might be fun though…
Any ideas for targets?
Military? Plastics companies? Neo-con web sites? Spectacle TV?
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THE ALGORITHM IS SPARTICUS
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No, I’m Spartacus.
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The algorithm will always yield 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
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you want a conspiracy? Here’s a conspiracy: My friend Dave runs a small phpBB3 message board with only 23 members and closed registration, but almost once a week, I’m online at the same time as a user called “Google [Bot]” who’s not actually a user and has no profile. Google is following me! It’s a trap!
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How does one go about finding the frequency of searches?
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Here’s irony. I googled “THE ALGORITHM” and the digg story was on the front results page. I used ask.com, and there were no hits on their own ad campaign. THE ALGORITHM FAILS AT LIFE.
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Heh, it looks like the good folks here at xkcd weren’t the only ones with this idea. The top two hits a few moments ago on google for the phrase:
The algorithm killed Jeeves
are a couple of online marketing consultants. I guess they know what they are doing.
xkcd is 4th at the moment.
But, better yet, the Sponsored link at the very top of the page is bought and paid for by Ask.com
So let me get this straight. First Ask.com develops this poorly conceived viral marketing campaign, and now they are actually paying google to advertise their search engine.
Frankly, I’m not sure how to feel.
I couldn’t resist clicking on their sponsored link though 🙂
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The thought occurred, Ask.com is a part of this, (there it is again). So it worked.
It’s here with us; but I don’t like it.
That’s their problem.
James Said:
“How does one go about finding the frequency of searches?”
I just got a free ‘thingy’ called StatCounter. Sitemeter, is good, ‘Tracking’ is another key search word.
mh
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Awesomesauce. I am participating in the BloGoogling.
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