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Sarah B
Unfettered
Joined: 21 Apr 2007 Posts: 616 Location: Stonehenge, UK
Maybe I'm being dense, but where did googleunexplainephenomenon.com and addthemup.com come from? O.o
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Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:45 am
Jecai
Greenhorn
Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 4
I found googleunexplainedphenomenon.com from Page 1 of this thread. The poster was "belab" (guest), who could well be a collaborator. AdThemUp.com is linked from that site.
Checking back today, apparently 11.com is a nexus of sorts for a lot of the sites involved. This appears to be a highly coordinated cross-promotion involving not only google but dozens of major corporates. Of course I can't be sure that these entities are co-sponsoring rather than just being referenced by Google, but I'd bet on it.
The game is alluding to Lie Group E8, a mathematical model used in string theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E8_ (mathematics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory_of_Everything
Description
Cropped screenshot of 11.com ("Show your world" variant; hit the button at the bottom of the site).
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Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 12:34 am
SteganosaurusRex
Veteran
Joined: 15 Sep 2009 Posts: 117
aliens, where? or, alienware?
Could be their handiwork. I think they've gone viral before.
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 1:07 am
feriwiccan
Decorated
Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 173 Location: Amherst, MA
This is pretty neat. I'll bite. /lurk
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Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:11 pm
sapagoo
Charter Member
Joined: 25 Sep 2002 Posts: 1213 Location: Atlanta, GA
Jecai wrote:
I found googleunexplainedphenomenon.com from Page 1 of this thread. The poster was "belab" (guest), who could well be a collaborator. AdThemUp.com is linked from that site.
adThemup is a division of CreativeGroundMedia. Creative Ground Media is a graphic & web design company.
They also have a web page called chickfilalaborday which directs people to chick-fil-a's promotion from last week.
That makes it look like Creative Ground Media just likes grabbing onto large corporate promotions to make it look like they are affiliated (at worst), or just fans of large corporate promotions (at best).
I'm still in the "H.G.Wells birthday" camp.
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Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:34 pm
Jecai
Greenhorn
Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 4
This is definitely an extensive marketing campaign. I realize I forgot to post earlier:
http:/www.yourworld.com/
This is a link to a nexus of sorts for the game. It's aliased through 11.com (and possibly others) and has links to a bunch of co-sponsors sites and minisites with references to e8, international time zones, etc.
Welles' birthday is a part of it, but only a small part. I think this was planned to coincide with a bunch of events for the purpose of initial misdirection.
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:30 pm
KLind
Entrenched
Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 928 Location: Columbus, Ohio
Connected? URL is HGWells09.gif
Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 1:45 am
MisterMalign
Boot
Joined: 11 Aug 2009 Posts: 50 Location: Seattle, Washington
KLind wrote:
Connected? URL is HGWells09.gif
It leads to a google search for H.G. Wells, might there be more information to this?
Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:58 am
Jecai
Greenhorn
Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 4
Maybe I've been wrong here. It might be pure opportunism, unrelated to Google, on behalf of googleunexplainedphenomenon.com and yourworld.com and its numerous sister sites.
I say this because it's been noted on the foremost above site that one T.J. Demas (to whose Twitter page a link appears on yourworld.com) purchased yourworld.com and at least some of its current sister sites over a year ago:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2008/domainsales08-26-08.htm
However, neither this fact nor Sunday's celebration of H.G. Wells' birthday confirms that Google is not collaborating with Demas or that there is not still an update coming on the 27th.
If this is a test as their {first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com recruiting campaing was, this could be misdirection acting as a filter.
But if there's some ultimate objective, the clues to which are embedded somewhere in yourworld.com and the sites linked therefrom, I can't figure out what it is. I guess I'm just waiting until the 27th.
Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:37 am
veebee
Unfettered
Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Posts: 551
Voila:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/6213883/HG-Wells-birthday-Google-UFO-doodle-explained.html
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Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:38 am
sakai23
Decorated
Joined: 01 Nov 2008 Posts: 209 Location: In an Impala, by the Lair, on an Island called Beacon Hills
Kinda cool that they did this whole thing with their doodles. They should do it more often. ^^
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Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:35 am
Jett
Boot
Joined: 29 Jul 2008 Posts: 40 Location: Southeastern US
Turducken wrote:
http://www.unexplainedphenomenon.org/
EDIT: Did a whois, registered by a Joseph Chung, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he works for google.
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Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:29 am
riquardo
Decorated
Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Posts: 280
So has this thing ended? That's a shame, I think we we're all wainting for something more.
Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:56 pm
MisterMalign
Boot
Joined: 11 Aug 2009 Posts: 50 Location: Seattle, Washington
Looks like this hasn't ended yet.
I was just searching on Google and saw a barcode in place of where google usually is, it leads to a search for barcodes, and it's under the name 'barcode09.gif'
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Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 5:37 am
amandel
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee
Joined: 15 Jan 2008 Posts: 4096 Location: Nederland
Ran the ' barcode09.gif' through ZXing Decoder . It spells "Google" The Washington Post explains why.
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Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 5:44 am
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