'Sloppy Google' Is Lazy And Incompetent, Like A Human

Alexia Tsotsis

Alexia Tsotsis is the co-editor of TechCrunch. She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Writing and Art, and moved to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the media industry. After four years of living in New York and attending courses at New York University, she returned to Los Angeles in... → Learn More

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

Sometimes I think we suffer from Louis CK syndrome, as in we don’t fully understand how amazing it is to live in a time where technological advancements allow all the world’s information to be accessed at our fingertips, among other things.

A mashup of Html5 Canvas, processing.js, jQuery, and the Google Search API, the Sloppy Google project yawns as it completes erroneous searches, expressing its apathy for its work anthropomorphically. To further hammer it home, its “I Feel Lucky” button is perennially out of service.

In the same vein as CK’s “Everything’s Amazing And Nobody’s Happy” video, Sloppy Google serves as a reminder that for all its foibles, Google is still way better at its job then we are, never sleeping, making careless mistakes or being half-assed (unless you include Adsense).

Writes creator Yuin Chein, an MFA at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design (verbatim),

“What if searching – the everyday digital routine of our lives is somehow different? What if Google is represented by humanistic operators who type in keywords and submit search request for you? In contrary to auto correct your spelling, it messes up your search results by misspelling your keywords; it yawns at your face just like a careless customer service agent would have done to you. Having a lazy Google is surprisingly comforting to some! Machine isn’t perfect, it makes mistakes, and it needs rest just like everyone of us.”

Exactly.

You can search on Sloppy Google here.


Company: Google
Website: google.com
Launch Date: September 7, 1998
IPO: NASDAQ:GOOG

Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...

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