If over the past few days, the arrow keys and the space bar on your keyboard have taken quite the punching/pressing/pushing/beating, you are perhaps among the gazillions of others who are addicted to Google’s Olympic doodles!
Not new to Google’s concept of designer doodles that have promoted scribbling to an art, and have turned fact-finding into fun, Google’s doodles have gotten more interactive. While we could play the guitar on the homepage on guitarist Les Paul’s 96th birthday, we can now run the 110m hurdle race and even shoot hoops like our favourite sport stars are doing at London 2012.
Addictive is probably an understatement when it comes to defining the Olympic doodles on Google’s homepage. While some are capturing snapshots of their scores on-screen and posting it on Facebook, others are using Google+ Bragging Rights to announce their feat to the rest of the world.
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According to Mahima Singh, a collegian, “What is most enticing about these doodles is the fact that we are a part of the Games without really being in London! Since the Olympics started, the first thing I do as soon as I wake up is switch on my laptop and go to the Google homepage! For someone who can barely skip two steps while climbing a staircase, it was fun to play Google’s hurdle run and actually score quite decently!”
Concurring with her is chartered accountant Thomas Joshua who feels: “Since the Olympics is the biggest global sporting event and everyone loves to feel part of it, in whatever little way, the concept is brilliant. The Google doodles are fantastic primarily because it doesn’t require me to agree to a long list of terms and conditions. Also there’s no downloading, waiting, etc. It’s so simple and still so clever. Being an athlete, my favourite was the hurdles and I spent a good part of my day at it, furiously trying to get a better score.”
Principal Consultant at a software firm, Naveen Noronha enjoyed the basketball doodle the most but also thinks the canoeing one is a fabulous idea. He says: “Google’s Olympic doodles are a great idea to keep the world aware of what’s happening on a day-to-day basis at the Olympics. And it is undoubtedly a brilliant way to get people pushing themselves to get a good score because that’s what the spirit of sports is about.”
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“For someone who hates computer games, I think Google’s Olympic doodles are fun and addictive,” states photographer James Kiren Joel. “My favourite has to be the basketball doodle because it not only is my favourite game but the doodle created a competition among my friends and teammates to see who scores the highest,” he adds.
Gone are the days when we would Google for information. Now we Google for doodles and well after the Flame is extinguished at tomorrow’s closing ceremony, withdrawal symptoms might just manifest itself in the form of us spending more time on these increasingly obsessive playable doodles!