To celebrate their 10th birthday [10 years from 2 guys and an algorithm to masters of the universe] Google have announced Project 10100
The project is crowdsourcing for positive change: anyone can submit an idea to help the world and the one that Google thinks will help the most people, they will fund with $10 million. It's an audacious and excellent way to celebrate Doing No Evil for ten years.
I think all advertisers should do this. Right now. Every single one. Take $10 million of your advertising budget and steal the idea and help change the world. I mean it.
Go on. You know you want to. You will feel much better about yourself.
Google is one of the most advanced corporate communicators in the world, they just happen to do it without advertising. Instead of campaigns they very strategically launch products - Gmail went into live beta on April 1st with 1GB of free storage, triggering a flurry of conversations wondering whether it was a hoax - and initiatives like this. They are constantly creating NEWs.
The birthday site also hosts some great essays on the FUTURE and user stories about how you use Google, designed to demonstrate just how instrumental the search engine is in our lives and our future.
