Over the years, Google's mantra of "Do no evil" went from an unorthodox, out of the box approach to capitalism to the butt of many jokes dealing with their lack of transparency. They have even been accused of having an unpredictable, unexplainable, almost dictatorial behavior. Those in affiliate marketing have begrudgingly become accustomed to this. The rest of the world saw an example of Google being Google two weeks ago when it became public that the company altered its satellite imagery of New Orleans, magically rebuilding the city overnight, removing the post-Katrina damage from both Google Earth and Google Maps. The Official Google Blog shared their side of the story a few days later but concludes, "this wasn't any effort on our part to rewrite history. But it looks like this April Fool's joke was on us." A recent initiative, though, one unrelated to their handling of New Orleans, finds Google getting back to the true meaning of do no evil.
In a story that first caught my attention when listening to NPR and now making more widespread press, Google has teamed up the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to map the atrocities occurring in Darfur. We break from tradition for a bit as this effort (fortunately) has nothing to do directly with advertising. The partnership does, though, give us a great opportunity to explore not just this truly wonderful project but also to take a uniquely DM Confidential style look at the status of (Google) Earth.
1. The Download
We said the Google Darfur initiative didn't directly involve advertising, but that does not apply to Google Earth itself. Love or hate affiliate marketing, affiliates have found a way to make money on just about anything, even when it seemed unlikely. Notice the top sponsored ad - how clever is that? This person hosts it on Google Pages (looks official), use a fake subdomain so that it both reads more officially and gets bolded, plus a false directory name to get even more bolding. The page itself is a classic example of an SEO turned SEM that drives downloads of Google Pack by manipulating the ad text of a Google AdSense ad. The whole site is annoyingly brilliant and no doubt a "why didn't I think of that?" for some.
2. Initial Launch
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Internet Explorer users, fire up the program for the first time, and you will notice Google making the most of their exposure to you. Before launching for the first time, Google Earth will check to see if you have Google set as your default search engine, and prompt you to switch if you do not. It reminds me of an ad I saw checking Gmail on a different PC that ran an older version of Internet Explorer. It confused me then and still confuses me now as it came from Google promoting IE7 with the Google Toolbar. I can only imagine launching IE7 for the first time and having it say,MSN is not your default search engine...
3. Darfur
Type in Africa into the "Fly to" box, and you see the continent with Google Earth's traditional yellow outline of different countries. As part of this collaboration, the western region of Sudan has an orange outline. Type sudan, africa into the fly-to box for the following.
On the country level view you can clearly see Google's partnership with U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on the Crisis in Darfur. When you click on the hotspot, you get more than a little flag or article. You can see actual photos, watch videos and read testimonials.
Click in further on the map and experience even more.
I think we tend to rank among the more informed, but that doesn't mean we understand what really goes on in the world. As the genocide in Darfur enters its fourth year, I imagine many, myself certainly included, have only recently started to comprehend the scope of the destruction. While an incredible amount of information exists about Darfur, unless you look for it or are pointed to it, you won't find it. This is the true power of Google - its ability to aggregate and dismantle information asymmetry. Now, the 20 million downloads of Google Earth (and presumably more thanks to the publicity of this project with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum) can understand the situation on a whole new level. It's an impressive piece of collaboration but more excitingly only the tip of the iceberg for this and many more.
Applied on a more local scale, Google Earth has great promise for charities and smaller causes. Anyone can create a feed for Google Earth that users can integrate. Already, users of Google Earth can incorporate tours from Discovery, hotel information from Booking.com, Wikipedia articles, even one's own 3-D models. Google Earth has become more than just a cute toy to see your house, where you grew up, and where you work. It has evolved into a must have program when on vacation, every middle and high school kids' dream, but ultimately,Google's little known community, a Second Life Lite that might just turn into a full-fledged virtual Earth (especially if/when they buy Linden Labs). Google may not always follow, to the letter, their mantra, but with Google Earth they have shown they can play a role in stopping evil. They certainly do a better job than those in the incentive promotion space...
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