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Googling Trivia Search Puzzle Reveals Casual Game Opportunities

GoogleAday

Today's Question:  

One company headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. will hold an event in Hollywood on Tuesday. Company executives decided to bring the event to Southern California because I belong here. Despite technical challenges based on copyright infringement and other difficulties in turning celluloid into bits and bytes, more consumers will consume me via the Web this year. What am I?

Those reading this post can either search google.com for the answer or I'll reveal it in Wednesday's Search Marketing Daily blog post.

Google launched a trivia game site Monday that lets players use its search engine to research answers. A Google a Day, the new daily puzzle, will post each day on agoogleaday.com and print on weekdays above The New York Times crossword puzzle. Google will reveal the answers for each puzzle the following day in both locations, along with search tips and features used to find it.

Think of the game as a modern-day crossword puzzle. Google explains in a blog post that the difficulty of the questions will increase during the course of the week. By Thursday or Friday, even the most seasoned searcher might become stumped.

This is not the first time Google has offered casual games or quizzes on the Web. And it's not beyond the realm of possibility for Google to build a platform to support casual mobile games for consumers using handsets operating on the Android phone.

"Trivia games are only as good as their sources, and since Google is the Universe's memory bank of record, it is a perfect fit for driving a trivia game," said Rick Marazzani, director of content and programming for Exent, a casual game publisher.

Google made a special version of the search engine that excludes real-time updates and other things that are likely to include spoilers as people post the answers to the puzzle online.

Google describes the search engine tool attached to the trivia quiz as "a wormhole inspired time machine that enables you to solve today's puzzle spoiler free by searching the internet as it existed before 'A Google a Day' was launched." A button at the top of the page takes users to the regular Google search engine. Perhaps it's the answer to Bing's home page meant to educate users.

Monday's question asked: "Two future presidents signed me. Two didn't because they were abroad. Despite my importance, modern viewers seem to think I have a glaring spelling error. What is it?"

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