Project 10 to the 100th

We are constantly encouraged to think big for our clients.  Whether it’s an exciting new campaign, or way to grow their business outside of advertising, we try to bring ideas that paint upon a broader canvas.  As Jack says, leaders think about what happens after what happens next.

It would seem that Google is elevating that idea times ten (a hundred times).  Project 10 to the 100th (10100 is the mathematical notation of a googol) is in part a celebration of ten years of Google, but it is also a community project.

From their project’s Why page:

Never in history have so many people had so much information, so many tools at their disposal, so many ways of making good ideas come to life. Yet at the same time, so many people, of all walks of life, could use so much help, in both little ways and big.

In the midst of this, new studies are reinforcing the simple wisdom that beyond a certain very basic level of material wealth, the only thing that increases individual happiness over time is helping other people.

In other words, helping helps everybody, helper and helped alike.

Will it work?  Will great ideas be unearthed?  What big ideas do you have?

Happy Birthday, Tony!

Braving the icy north, Tony toils away at his workstation.  “Compute, damn you!” he mutters into his thinning notebook.  His fingers carefully scrawl the runes of a foreign language called “math”.  Somewhere, a watch beeps.  His bloodshot eyes peer up at the nearest clock.  With a dry chuckle, he realizes that he’s now a year older.  “Happy birthday to me…” he breathes as turns back to his stubborn figures.  The watch ticks on.

Or maybe he’s watching The Office; I don’t know.

Happy Birthday!

Google Chrome

Some of you may have heard about this over the weekend, but Google leaked an announcement of its new, open source web browser, dubbed Google Chrome.  I say “leaked” because it appears they (snail) mailed some press materials that showed up a day early.  The announcement was meant for today, not yesterday.  As such, there’s little to nothing online from the Internet giant.

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-01-n47.html was sent a Scott McCloud illustrated comic book talking about the new Chrome web browser.  Scott McCloud is awesome, if you’ve never heard of him.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html is Google’s “oops” post.

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/ is a Google book with scanned pages of the comic book. It’s a great read, and the web browser is explained in a way that is entertaining as well as informative, all without being technical.

http://www.google.com/chrome is the URL at which (presumably) we’ll be able to download Chrome for Windows when it’s released.  Apple and Linux versions are in the works.

http://ejohn.org/blog/google-chrome-process-manager/ is John Resig (creator of Javascript library jQuery)’s take on what Chrome can mean for web developers in particular.

It’ll be interesting to see how Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple, Opera and others respond to this.  What do you think?  Is the browser market too cluttered?  Is there room for improvement?  Would you consider switching browsers?