Google Gave Me a Giggle

A Google writer engineered a great practical joke for April Fool's Day. At Google Blogoscoped, he described a new tool developed by Google for bloggers.

It's called Google Writer. Not only does it promise to provide the blogger with links to relevant information about any topic, it also

suggests a title, some key quotes from other blogs and some interesting sites, images, and videos about the topic to facilitate your research. You can choose those that interests you and let Google Writer create some context around the quotes. Google Writer has a big database...and it's able to create grammatically-correct sentences. It also learns your writing style from the previous articles, it knows your favorite authors, sites and your interests.

What a great idea! Right now, I have 26 drafts sitting on my Editing Dashboard. That's just this site! I also maintain Road Trip which has a few drafts; and the blog that started it all for me: No Access to Health Treatment. That one only has a couple drafts on its dashboard.

I'll just feed GoogleWriter the main idea and it can guide me through the rest of the writing and editing. Those drafts will move into the Published realm in minutes! I especially love that Google Writer is capable of learning my writing style. Then readers won't be able to discern an original Chris-post from a Google/Chris collaboration. (Although, since it has taken me 30 years to develop my writing style, I'd naturally be disappointed that a computer program could pick it up quickly.) Another benefit is that, presumably, there'd always be fresh material - no more 12 day gaps in posts.

The whole idea reminds me of The Hook by Donald E. Westlake. Someone else does the work and you get all the credit. When I put it that way, it reminds me of many work environments too.

Here's what really amused me: some people were trying to sign up for the service. Some people are so desperate to find shortcuts or look for an easy way out, that they are looking for someone to write their posts for them. Is somebody really willing to let a computer program 'create some context' around a few keywords? Imagine the results!

Forget AdSense! I'll sell blog posts. Supply me with a few keywords and I can create some context for you. I think I can charge more today than I did in High School.

Fee Schedule

Word Count	Quality	Cost Untitled / Titled (USD)
<250	Mediocre	$150 / $175
251-450	Mediocre	175 / 200
<200	Clever	250 / 350
201-400	Clever	375 / 500
	Academic	Contact me for estimate

Terms: Deposit required on all requests for material. Deposits are non-refundable. Material must be accepted as delivered. All work guaranteed to be original,but not exclusive. Audience response may be different than expected. Material quality determined by the author. Other conditions may apply.


[April Fool's Day] [Google Writer] [Make Money Blogging]

[Donald E. Westlake] [Google Blogoscope]