The latest craze, swallowing a tbs. of cinnamon without water, has hit YouTube in full force. The site contains over 30,000 videos with the tag, and millions of views for the more popular ones.

It is basically impossible, there is not enough saliva in the human mouth to absorb the cinnamon, and it gets stuck in the mouth and throat, causing people to blow out a big puff of cinnamon cloud, then gag on the rest thats stuck to the lining of their esophagus.

The reaction is what people find so amusing. Almost no one can do it, and people find it funny to watch them spew out dry cinnamon when they try, in the same way its funny to watch someone get hit in the groin on America’s Funniest Home videos. Participants are simply looking to get views on their video for their absurd reaction.

The problem is that you can become seriously injured trying this stunt. There have been cases of people suffering from a collapsed lung from coughing so violently. The cinnamon can cause lung scarring and inflammation if inhaled. Some have even been hospitalized with pneumonia like symptoms after attempting the feat.

This kid actually does it, and then some.

Some other notable challenges involving food include eating a whole bar of cocao, a whole pack of warheads, a whole gallon of milk, 50 hardboiled eggs…

These challenges combine some or all of them. This is highly dangerous. Please don’t do this. In fact, don’t even watch this…

Here’s a hint – Kentucky looks really good (and I’m saying that as a UNC fan).

Something which has evolved in recent years is bracket challenges appearing online. If you’re smart/lucky, you can bring in quite a haul if you want to take the time to fill out brackets. I’ve done a small bit of research to find some of the better challenges out there – below is what I found, and the prizes you can expect if you win.

Fox Sports
Grand Prize: $1,000,000

Coke Zero Bracket Challenge
Grand Prize: Trip for 2 to the 2012 NCAA Mens Final Four

NBCSports Bracket Challenge
Grand Prize: $2,000

CBSSports.com
Grand Prize: Trip for 4 to 2013 NCAA Final Four

ESPN Tournament Challenge
Grand Prize: $10,000 Best Buy gift card

If you’re looking for help in choosing your Final Four and tournament champion, you can find all sorts of information in the links I’ve provide above. Honestly though, no one has any idea what they’re really talking about. Ask any of the experts you find if they had Butler in the final game from the past two years.

Since I can’t help myself, here are some key upsets to look out for at various points during the tourney…

- Long Beach St. (12) upsetting New Mexico (5) — First Round

- Texas (11) upsetting Cincinnati (6) — First Round

- NC State (11) upsetting San Diego St. (6) — First Round

- Murray St. (6) upsetting Marquette (3) — Second Round

- UNLV (6) upsetting Baylor (3) — Second Round

- Wisconsin (4) or Vanderbilt (5) upsetting Syracuse (1) — Sweet Sixteen

- Florida St (3) upsetting Ohio St. (2) — Sweet Sixteen

When all is said and done, your Final Four should look like this – Kentucky, Michigan St., Florida St., and North Carolina

Trust me, I’m an expert.

Register your class for the Google Online Marketing Challenge

Or is this something more than a contest? Maybe it is Google planting the seed of online marketing, AdWords and general SEO into the minds of college marketing students. Right on the sidebar of the contest page you have a link explaining what Google AdWords is:

The Google Online Marketing Challenge > About Google AdWords

Digging deeper in the FAQ’s for the contest you find:

Is the competition about Google AdWords?

Partially; the competition is about online marketing. Google AdWords serves as a vehicle for gathering real world data and discussing online advertising’s role in online marketing. Teams, however, must discuss other aspects of online marketing such as website layout and offline promotion, in both written reports. The competition is about real-world applications of online marketing; Google AdWords is merely the platform.

What if I have never used AdWords?

As Google’s flagship advertising product, setting up and running an AdWords account is simple. You and your students will have ample AdWords material in the Competition Pack sent to all registered professors. All things equal, the more you know about AdWords, the more fun for your students and you, and the better their chances to win.

So you pretty much have to use AdWords in this contest:

How do students win?

Students compete on three criteria, two short written reports and the most effective Google AdWords campaign for their business.

The most effective campaign is judged by looking at over 30 different factors from account structure through to use of budget.

Details on the report format and a guide to creating a successful campaign will be available in the Competition Pack sent to all registered professors and students, and on this competition website in late 2007 / early 2008.

More about the Google Contest:

The challenge is a global online marketing competition developed by professors from across the globe in collaboration with Google. It starts in February 2008 and is open to any higher education institution from anywhere in the world.

Student groups will receive US$200 of free online advertising and then work with local businesses to devise effective online marketing campaigns. They will outline a strategy, run their campaign, assess their results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing.

It’s a great chance for students to gain practical, real world online marketing experience whilst getting all the excitement of competing with other students from all over the world.

We’re looking for professors and institutions to register for the challenge now.

I think the funniest part of the contest is the “Tips On Selecting Businesses”

Tips on Businesses to Avoid

When searching for likely candidates, remember that regardless of the business’ size, you may compete against many companies who have large advertising budgets to spend on the same keywords you want to use. With this in mind, there are a few businesses you should avoid:

* Web Hosting
* Web Design Agencies
* Insurance Companies
* Mortgage Agencies
* Debt Consolidation Companies
* Multi-level marketers
* Distributors
* Affiliate Companies

Also bear in mind that Travel and Finance businesses can be difficult to utilise for this competition – many of the big players in these industries have advertised and optimised their campaigns for years, and have significant online advertising budgets. It might be tough for you to compete against them.

I am wondering what’s the angle here? What is Google trying to get from this?

1. Better local SERP results for localized queries?

3. Teaching SEO from the ground up? Maybe G finally realizes the disconnect SEO intrinsically has with most of the public, namely college students. Realizing that no colleges really offer a satisfactory SEO course, that can be properly maintained, Google might feel that this type of contest will help the next generation of college students become more familiar with the practice of SEO.

I will say number 3. By plugging an SEO contest into many college curriculums that otherwise might not have it, could be good for Google AdWords bottom line long term. This will also cause a dependency from the local business on Google if they have success in the initial spending, Not bad thinking Google.

What do you think?

Comments

Since I’m an optimist I try to imagine they do it mainly to encourage innovation and better solutions to the world’s problems both on and offline. Even if that’s not the whole story, it’s very feel good. It infuses a sense of fun and open-mindedness since they are always a bit quirky are aimed a broad age and range of people.

Contests can be a good way to get things done and you don’t have to fly people to company headquarters either. Guy Kawasaki got his book cover designed by running a contest.

Here is a list of some Google contests (feel free to fill me in on any I’ve missed):

• Google Highly Open Participation Contest
• Doodle 4 Google competition
• Google Moon Contest
• Build Your Campus in 3D Competition!
• Google Desktop Gadget Contest

Here’s another Google contest for college students who want to assist local businesses about online marketing. It’s called the Online Marketing Challenge.

Here are some details for the Online Marketing Challenge:

• It was developed with college professors around the world
• Students get $200 worth of free advertising dollars to spend on a campaign
• Groups of students find local businesses to run an internet marketing strategy
• Starts in February 2008 and participants run the campaign on a three week timeframe

If you teach a college course (this makes me want to actually) this is a great way to give students practical experience on Google’s dime. The contest winners get a trip to the Googleplex and get to meet the developers of Google AdWords. Probably some swag too. No cash, but a bit of fun.

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Recently in Boston, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, was pushing a theme that is dear to many of us. The Mobile Web should grow with open standards. The Walled Garden approach should be abandoned.

The mobile Internet needs to be fully and completely the Internet, nothing more and nothing less. It needs to be free of central control, universal, and embodied in open standards.

The “walled garden” is the metaphor that describes today’s cable TV and cellular data networks, where subscribers can only use devices authorized by the carrier, and can only access content and services authorized by the carrier, the exact opposite of the World Wide Web running over the IP-based Internet, which cell phone users can access from their home and work PCs.

Exhortations are fine but surprisingly he did not mention Google’s initiative with the Open Handset Alliance. Google’s Android project, based as it is on the Open Source approach, should be a powerful de-stabilizer of those walled gardens. Michael Mace, like many others, seems to be excited by what the Android project offers. The $10 million Android challenge announced by Steve Horowitz, Google’s Engineering Director, should be an additional incentive.

Rob Domanski is also excited. He quotes a Wired article that states, “Lockdowns on hardware functionality, demanded by service providers and enforced by the manufacturers, have resulted in a marketplace filled with crippled devices that are only minimally configurable or expandable”. This means that innovation suffers and both the consumer and the mobile industry itself miss out on some serious Mobile Web opportunities. He is concerned that Google’s initiative uses the more restrictive version of open-source as adopted by Apache, rather than the more open GPL, which covers Linux and GNU software. However this is unlikely to save the walled gardens to any great extent.

It would be surprising if everyone welcomed Android. There is perhaps no surprise that Microsoft and Yahoo! are at this point somewhat cool to the project. Frank Pasquale has a different concern about Google’s Open-Source initiatives. Given that the associated ad revenues could be enormous, Google and others will try to make their applications so attractive that no one will want to try anything else. Who could quibble with success? Those wouldn’t be walled gardens.

Comment…

"It starts in February 2008 and is open to any higher education institution from anywhere in the world. Students will work with local businesses to devise effective online marketing campaigns. They will outline a strategy, run their campaign, assess their results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing. It’s a great chance for students to gain practical, real world online marketing experience whilst getting all the excitement of competing with other students from all over the world."

Haochi writes that, "Global winners will receive a trip to the Googleplex in Mountain View and meet the AdWords developers, and regional winners are invited to their local Google office." Teachers who wish to register their class for this challenge, click here.

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Google Flashes $10M At Android Developers

The time-honored motivator, money, comes into play for application developers intrigued by the possibilities of the Android mobile platform. Android’s opening came as part of the Open Handset Alliance announcement from earlier in November.

“We’ve built some interesting applications for Android but the best applications are not here yet and that’s because they’re going to be written by developers,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in a statement. “We’d like to reward these developers and recognize them as much as possible.”

Those rewards come in the form of the Android Developer Challenge. Prizes from $25,000 to $275,000 await those developers whose work grabs the attention of the judges overseeing the entries in the Challenge.

Developers will first need the Android SDK, which became available for download today. The first round of entries will be accepted between January 2 and March 3, 2008.

Fifty of these will be picked for awards, and invited to apply for the next round of the Challenge. Google said ten awards of $275,000 and ten awards of $100,000 will be up for grabs in that second round. Those winners will be announced at the end of May 2008.

Google also noted the first handsets built on the Android platform will become available in the second half of 2008. Once that takes place, Challenge II will be announced for mobile application developers.

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Jonathan Kauffman, General Manager for Enterprise Search with Microsoft, wrote at the product’s blog of its capabilities. He cited several features like relevancy tuning and security-trimmed search results as being part of the product.

It will also support the OpenSearch standard, for federating searches across products. Kauffman acknowledged federation support from EMC, Cognos, HP, Business Objects, SAS, and OpenText. Connectors for those products should arrive with the full release of Search Server Express 2008 early next year.

Though Kauffman claimed corporate passion about giving away useful tools as a motivator for making Search Server Express 2008 available for free, there’s probably a couple of other reasons that apply. Competing with the IBM/Yahoo product would be a classic Microsoft tactic.

Search Server Express 2008 also serves as a gateway product to more advanced, for-pay solutions, just as IBM Omnifind Yahoo Edition does for IBM. In Microsoft’s case, it leads to Search Server and then to Office SharePoint Server, the latter product likely ensuring plenty of Microsoft products in the enterprise accompanying it.

Delivering a capable enterprise search product for free also gives Microsoft an edge against its hated rival, Google. The dominant search company sells its Google Search Appliance in a couple of form factors for business, as well as offering the free Google Desktop for Enterprise for local PC searches.

In a conference call last week Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, "Our mobile searches are increasing rapidly compared to a year ago; they are growing more quickly than nonmobile searches." But he pointed out  "they are still a very small percentage of total searches," Schmidt said, "which is of great frustration to us."

Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst for Oppenheimer &Co. told Investor’s Business Daily, "There are three times more mobile users in the world than PC users," he said. "Mobile is a very important platform for them and they are going to do everything they can to get there."

Google has a number of deals with wireless carriers, including T-Mobile and Vodafone to provide its search service for those carriers customers. Google president and co-founder Larry Page commented on a possible Google phone or mobile operating system saying,"I don’t think again that there’s a requirement to do any things like that…we would also love to get even greater numbers of people and wider access to our applications that we provide…So I think that it is more of an opportunity for us then a cost".

" We have tremendous usage of our current mobile applications and we have deals with very, very many different wireless carriers and so on, and many other types of carriers. I think those things will all continue."

If Google does build its own mobile phone or wireless operating system it could damage the relationships it has with mobile carriers.  Jonathan Hurd, director of Altman Vilandrie & Co. said that Google cannot afford to get dropped from any carrier while its working to expand its wireless search ad service.

"Custom Reports and Scheduling – One popular request from our advertisers is the ability to customize and schedule reports. Well, voila! Starting today, you’ll be able to customize your reports based on date range, filter criteria and data columns. You can also choose to have your reports emailed to you at intervals that you specify: daily, weekly or monthly. In addition, you can choose the format in which you’d like to receive them, including XML, TSV or CSV for Excel.

Going Lateral – Another request from our advertisers is the ability to move laterally from one detail page to another without having to backtrack to a summary page. Now, you’ll notice, we’ve added “Previous” and “Next” buttons to your campaign, ad group and keyword pages to help make it easier to navigate around your account. You will also see the relative location of the particular campaign, ad group or keyword page you’re on in at any given time in relation to the others: for example: "3 of 23 Ad Groups." You can also navigate this way through search results.

This navigation aid also lets you move more easily among campaigns, ad groups and keywords that are in the top performers or watched lists in your account.

The Today Show – In the calendar widget that appears in the upper right of the page under your Campaigns and Reports tabs, you can now select “Today,” from the “Custom Date Range” drop-down menu. Your default setting will still be the previous two weeks unless you select a custom date range. Whatever range you choose will then become your new default.

A Little Help from Your Friends – We’re always bugging you to make sure your ads meet our editorial guidelines. Now we’re providing easier access to our guidelines from those places in the interface where it is most relevant: the Create Your Ad, Choose Keywords and Editorial Status pages."

For more, view Yahoo! Search.

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