Google Romance BETA Launches with Contextual Dating
Saturday was April Fools day and Google stuck to the tradition of their previous April Fools pranks of Google Gulp and GMail (ok, GMail wasn’t really a prank) and other hoaxes like Google Pigeon Rank.
Yesterday Google made two announcements which added to the seasonal fun, Google Aliens and Google Romance (BETA).
While the Google Aliens landing on Google Earth joke is kind of cute, Google Romance is quite hilarious as Google takes the chance to poke fun at itself and its BETA product launches (and launch copy) with the hoax:
When you think about it, love is just another search problem. And we’ve thought about it. A lot. Google Romance™ is our solution.
Google Romance is a place where you can post all types of romantic information and, using our Soulmate Search™, get back search results that could, in theory, include the love of your life. Then we’ll send you both on a Contextual DateTM, which we’ll pay for while delivering to you relevant ads that we and our advertising partners think will help produce the dating results you’re looking for.
Users looking to score on the Google dating scene have the choice of manually uploading their Google Romance profile or they can “Post multiple profiles with
a bulk upload file, you sleaze”
Google Romance even has a tour, Press Release and FAQ to back up the prank (or is it?)
The press release on Google Romance and “Contextual Dating”:
Google to Organize World’s Courtship Information with Google Romance
Service to offer psychographic matchmaking plus free “contextual dating” option
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 1, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Google Romance™, a new product that offers users both a psychographic matchmaking service and all-expenses-paid dates for couples who agree to experience contextually relevant advertising throughout the course of their evening.
“Our mission, as you might have heard, is to organize the world’s information,” said Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s senior vice president, product management. “And let’s face it: in what area of life is the world’s information more disorganized than romance? We thought we could use our search technology to help you find that special someone, then send you on a date and use contextual ads to help you, ya know – close the deal.”
Google Romance users who find one another via Soulmate Search™ may then select the Contextual Dating option, which offers an all-expenses-paid romantic evening in exchange for viewing contextually relevant advertising throughout the course of the users’ date (learn more). “Our internal projections say Contextual Dating is going to be unbelievably huge, just a total cash cow,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in prepared remarks placed into the notes section of an executive PowerPoint presentation and intended solely for internal use but promptly leaked onto the web and then roundly mocked on Digg and Slashdot. The product, a beta release currently residing on Google Labs, can be experimented with at www.google.com/romance/.
About Google Inc.
Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every second of every minute of every hour of every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. wannabes Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets and a very large number of minor ones. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for those users who haven’t tuned out of online commerce altogether. Most Google lava lamps and bean bag chairs are located in Silicon Valley, though numerous such lamps and chairs can also be found in offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.
