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Loading ...There are so many cool and under-marketed applications and integrations hidden in the Google universe — the Googleverse — that you just won’t believe. I received this birthday gift on my birthday, March 8th, from my business partner at Abraham Harrison LLC, Mark Harrison, called Chris’s Birthday, and how Google Saves the Day for Dominic
Chris’s Birthday, and how Google Saves the Day for Dominic
Dominic Loughton a professor of English at the University of Hawaii, in Honolulu, specializing in new media. Back in his undergraduate days, he did a year abroad at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England and one night while sipping wine and grading papers on 18th century English literature, he gets nostalgic for the old school…
After all these years in paradise, Dominic is getting a bit of island fever… it would be nice to get away for awhile to some place completely different… perhaps some place rainy and gray, rather than tropical and warm… someplace where the people are rude and the fish is deep-fried, rather than served as fresh sushi by friendly people… a change of pace..
Hm… maybe a semester as a guest lecturer at the University of East Anglia – in a light subject, like blogging… get back to the old college days and all that…
So, he goes to Google and types in:
He hits “search�? and up comes:
Look at that! The first result happens to be an old classmate of his – another American guy who did a year abroad at UEA.
Dominic is curious as to what has happened with Chris, who he hasn’t been in contact with for 15 years, so he clicks on the link…
and finds himself on Chris’s blog, chrisabraham.com.
Over on the right, Dominic sees a link to Chris’s Google Calendar, curious as to how Chris spends his time nowadays, Dominic clicks the button.
Oh! What do you know… it’s Chris’s birthday today! How cool would it be to call Chris up after all these years and wish him a happy birthday. It looks like Chris lives in Washington, DC. Dominic wonders what time it is there – can he call now?
Google notices that Dominic is looking for a very specific bit of information, so in addition to the regular results, Google returns the answer to Dominic’s question as well:
Ok, it’s 6:24am in DC. That’s a bit early to call. But given that it is so early, perhaps Dominic still has time surprise Chris with some sort of birthday present. Dominic vaguely remembers that Chris was a surprisingly good cook for a 20 year-old beer-guzzling American, perhaps something in that arena would make a good gift.
Using Google, Dominic searches Chris’s blog, chrisabraham.com for a clue…
With the simple operator “site:�? Dominic can restrict Google’s search to just one site’s content – and this search strikes gold immediately. Crepes! Yes, that was it, Chris loved to make crepes for everyone when they got home in the wee hours from the pub!
Maybe he should give Chris a crepe pan, and perhaps a crepe cookbook … but how and where?
Ok, the cookbook, that is easy – Google Books.
Score! The first hit looks good – though, a bit un-hip. Dominic decides to look inside the book…
Google is taking the trouble to scan over 1,000,000 books per year – and here is a great recipe for crepe filled with apples and Gruyerés. Dominic decides to simply go for it and buy Chris the book.
Dominic is a bit cheap, so he decides to try to find the very best price for the Good Housekeeping Cookbook, and goes to Froogle – Google’s price-comparison search engine – for that.
The results come back:
Sweet! $2.99! Dirt cheap. Just out of curiosity how much is that in Pounds nowadays?
Google does that too – it guesses that you’re trying to do a conversion. One quid fifty! That’s less than it costs for a pint of lager in London. Dominic decides to go for it.
But wait… today is Chris’s birthday, it will never get to him in time…
Perhaps there is a bookstore in Chris’s neighborhood, and maybe they’ll deliver it to him. Where does Chris live?
Dominic remembers that Google does phone book searches – he did one on his old friend Maria Johnson in Utica, New York a number of weeks back… but how did he do that. How the memory fades as one ages!
Fortunately, Google doesn’t forget. Dominic’s search history has been saved by Google Personalized Search, so remembering how to search the phone book should be easy.
That’s right… “rdirectory:�? That’s how to do it!
So Dominic searches for Chris Abraham in Washington, DC with the “rphonebook:�? command.
Great! There it is, 101 14th St. SE, Washington, DC. Good thing Chris didn’t choose to have his name removed from the list – this certainly makes it easier.
Dominic clicks on the “Map�? link to get a better idea of where Chris lives.
Ok, Capitol Hill… now, to find a bookstore, and perhaps get a satellite photo version of the map.
Snashing! There are a number of bookstores in neighborhood. The “Children’s Books�? doesn’t sound too promising… but perhaps this “Bird in Hand�? bookstore.
And look – Google will even make the call for Dominic. He clicks on “call�?.
Google calls him on his phone, then connects him to Bird in Hand Bookstore. Oh, but it’s still early morning there in DC. This will have to wait.
Dominic is not really sleepy, even but is in no mood to keep grading these paper… He decides to go down to the beach to walk in the sand and look out over the Pacific. But after three glasses of wine he really shouldn’t drive…
How about the bus?
Dominic goes to Google Transit, to see if the bus is still running at this hour. He types his home address, the street the beach park is on, and 1am as the time he’d like to catch a bus.
And the results come back:
Dominic gets a map of the route, the schedule he wanted, and the price – unfortunately, there’s no bus until 5:55am… so, that’s not an option. Well, the weather’s always beautiful in Honolulu, so Dominic can bicycle down to the beach instead. So, he clicks on “Drive There�? and gets the shortest route to the park.
Dominic bikes down to the beach
Google mobile to find 24 hour place, finds Zippy’s eats Loco Moco and Spam Musubi.
Checks his email via Gmail mobile notices (no spam no worries) that his students sent him some more papers, a colleague in Australia sent him a .pdf of an an academic article he is incorrectly quoted in – Dominic can look at the .pdf and immediately write an email to the journal and to the author. He can search his email for the old article they misquoted that he emailed to a journal six months previous. He finds it and forwards it while sitting on the beach.
Around 3am he goes to Google maps mobile, and has Google connect him to Bird in Hand Bookstore. They have the book, but don’t deliver. Dominic goes on Google Ride Finder on his phone, finds a taxi company, and has them pick up the book and deliver it to Chris.
Happy Birthday, Chris!
Filed under: Google, Googleverse
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