One month ago, Google invited marketers to create short videos in celebration of AdWords’s tenth birthday.  Now, the company’s finished piecing together a YouTube-centric tribute of sorts, and the creation might also act as free advertising for more than a few companies.

People who head to http://www.google.com/adwords/birthday will wind up on a special YouTube channel reading the message, "10 years ago Google launched AdWords, transforming online advertising.  To mark the occasion, advertisers have been sharing their stories with the world.  Meet them and join the celebration."

Then, if the visitors choose to click through, they’ll be confronted with a globe covered in markers.

This is where things start to get interesting.  Each marker corresponds to at least one AdWords user’s story.  Sometimes these are just a couple of paragraphs, or maybe only a sentence.  Sometimes they come in the form of videos.

Either way, the stories provide a unique way of learning about businesses – and AdWords’s impact – around the world.

This effort may convince a few more people to use AdWords, and could also earn a few companies new customers.  Finally, we should note that advertisers who are feeling left out can still submit a video – or even just a written story – and join the collection.