Well there is just so much I could say about hot air and balloons but I’m just going with this fun Google doodle today in honor of the first hot air ballon flight.

Further to my post last week about the Google competition for K-12 students, here is the winner of the contest.  Since we seem to have gone from long, cold winter where I live to a  rainy, cool spring, I agree this is great!  Thanks Google for encouraging students to share their artistic insights.  For more info check out Google’s blog about this.

Thanks so much Amy for pointing this out to me!  Most people know I love the Google doodles they publish for vaious occasions as I often include them here (see Mother’s Day Google doodle below).  But how about this from Google:

Doodle 4 Google is a competition where we invite K-12 students to reinvent Google’s homepage logo. This year we asked U.S. kids to doodle around the theme “What if…?”

And you can vote for your favorite from different levels of school kids!  I have two favorites in the K-3 group — the kids (called friendship rules) and the butterflies/birds/flowers (spring into Google — probably because winter here was so long this one really draws me).  And the fish Google doodle (thinking like a goldfish) in the 4-6 group is hilarious!  In the 7-9 group I really like the dragons and castle called ‘Once upon a Google”.   These kis are talented.  Check out the 10-12 “Gothic Google Architecture Blueprint”.  Awesome.  Only problem is there are so many good ones, I’m finding it hard to vote!

      Love it!

Okay, I’m fascinated by flowers as well as Google pics — must be because spring is very, very slow to come to my hometown this year……  Anyway, don’t you love the bunches of tulips in today’s first day of spring Google pic?  Reminds me of seeing, last October, Google’s real garden on their campus in CA. 

Going green is a real theme these days and I love Google’s contribution today for St. Patrick’s Day!  I’m hoping that going green will also be a theme this year at conferences I’m involved with.  Just think, less paper — bring on the USB’s instead of binders & books!  Or maybe password protected websites like the Internet World conference  had in the 90’s, yes eons ago in web time!

This will definitely be an interesting year for search.  Our favorite evangelist, Gary Price, has left Ask.com and Stephen Abram has speculated that by the end of 2008 there will be two major search engines.  And here’s an interesing article about Microsoft opening the doors to it’s research labs and showcasing new search technology, specifically SearchTogether, SearchBar and CoSearch.

“… A prototype operating system for the computer science research environment, was made available … free of charge for non-commercial and academic use. The program is geared toward improving software dependability and specifications. Rick Rashid, senior vice-president of Microsoft Research, said, “It fosters innovative ideas on operating system structure and interconnection, and makes more guarantees on behaviour, and predictive and reliable systems.”

Yes, an intersting year, especially with search engine watcher, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, moving back to California where much of what happens in search engine land is visible.  I hope Danny will come back to Internet Librarian, (October 20-22, Monterey CA) and once again give his briefing of what’s to come in “Search Engine Land”.

Isn’t cool how Google celebrates Alexander Graham Bell’s birthday?  Think of where we would be without his telecom discovery.

Jill Hurst-Wahl’s Facebook update last evening about earthquakes in Nevada reminded me about Ask.com’s earthquake site.  Last November when a quake rocked us at Internet Librarian in Monterey, Gary Price pointed me to site and it is so interesting.  If you haven’t viwed their earthquake watch, check it out!  I continues to amaze me how many earthquakes happen around the world every day — most small, but some sizable.  It definitely looks like the west coast of North America is having a busy earthquake week.