Google And Cross Media Entertainment
AOL Gold Rush is now the seventh (roughly) consecutive online cross-media entertainment game this year. These games are obviously very popular and continue to draw appeal to a large group of online gamers. My prediction is that we will continue to see mainstream online media games like The Google Da Vinci Code Quest, The Hunt From Volvo, and AOL Gold Rush. Google led the way with The Da Vinci Code Quest but I believe they could actually exploit these games and create a business model behind them.
Consider this, gaming is a billion dollar industry which is why Microsoft recently spent a lot of money to jump into the scene with their XBOX product. But, console gaming mainly appeals to a younger generation. With online cross-media entertainment games, the target audience is much larger and the cost to implement a game is also much cheaper. Because of these benefits I believe large businesses will continue to target this market and consequently I came up with the following idea.
I suggest that Google implement a server farm that they lease to companies for use in online cross media entertainment games. Google has more experiance with server farms and load balancing then any other company in the world. Just consider how many searches they process a day. I can't remember a single instance when I had to wait for a search result from Google. And while they did botch the final round of the Da Vinci game, surely they can learn from that mistake and make the necessary adjustments.
Just a thought I wanted to publish so when Google announces that they are going to start leasing a server farm for use with online games, I can take credit for being the first to have the idea.