You’ve probably already seen them everywhere today. That amazing deal, or that new app that sounds too good to be true, chances are….it probably is — very few companies take April 1st seriously, but its all in good fun!

Here are some our favorites so far for this year:

Google is now  TOPEKA

Effective 1AM (CDT) on April 1, 2010, Google changed its name to “Topeka.” In case you haven’t heard, this is because Google has decided to repay the tribute due to Topeka, Kansas renaming itself Google as part of a stunt to become part of Google’s municipal broadband project.

Starbucks introduces 2 new sizes (Digital Surgeons Fav)

Forget about Tall, Grande and Venti, Starbucks has two new sizes: Plenta and Micra. The Plenta is a 128-ounce drink for caffeine addicts who can’t get enough coffee, and for those who need just a tiny sip, you can get the 2-ounce Micra. And don’t worry about all that paper waste from the new Plenta sized-cup, they’ve thought about the environment. Starbucks says you can reuse your gigantic Plenta cups in a number of useful ways including as a “planter, lampshade or yoga block”.

Google street view now available in 3D

Google added a cool new element to is street view maps today: 3D view! In any street view map you can drag the little man icon from the upper left part of the screen anywhere on the map. Get your 3D glasses out!

Google Translator available in any language….How about animal??

Google placed a link on their homepage today, advertising a new Google Animal Translator service to add to their Language Translator service. Clicking the link would take you to a page advertising an app for Android phones for the translator, with the tagline being “Bridging the gap between animals and humans”. http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/

Once the app is installed on an Android phone it provides some amusing translations depending on the animal you select.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I24bSteJpw]

Ever wanted to swap your wife for a new one?

Wikipedia has hopped on board with the game today too! They featured an article on the homepage about the ancient English practice of Wife Selling, as well as strange but true news about a certain Japanese company that accidentally sent some of its customers back in time to 1999!

Justin Bieber: Bieber or Die?

If you plan on visiting the viral video site Funny or Die today, you’ll will be in for a surprise. This favorite comedy site of many has caught Bieber fever. The entire site is designed around the teen pop sensation Justin Bieber, after the singer bought up the site as a tribute to himself. As Bieber says in a video explaining his take over, “anything that’s not Bieber dies.”

Google Waves to Wave

Google Wave introduces humans that wave at you when Google Wave has been updated. With new “wave wave” notifications for Google you can find out if you have a notification in your mailbox, no matter where you are.

Hulu has a plan

Visit Hulu today, select a video and you’ll see an option to view content in 3D. You won’t need those special 3D glasses from earlier (or though you can try it), but you will go through the looking glass to see the horrible truth about Hulu and television itself. It turns out there is scientific proof that TV really will rot your brain, and the entertainment industry is filled with aliens (tell us something we didn’t know!)

How does it work?

Through Google Base and Google Merchant Center, you can describe any content you post with attributes. These attributes, which reveal characteristics of your item, help people find your posts when they do similar searches.

Google Base and Google Merchant Center serve as types of queries for Product Search, Adwords, and other Google properties. When users search for an item, Google will pull items that match the search from these listings. The attributes that were entered into Google will be given to the user to help them make a better product choice. The more relevant the item’s description is to the search at hand, the more likely that item will be selected.

A Golden Marketing Tool

Although a major component of the original Google Base was an online classified ads service, it can also be used to list things like current events, recipes, and profiles. You can list services on Google Base, as well. Virtually anything a person is trying to sell or promote can be listed using Google Base.

Google Base versus Google Merchant Center

In September 2009, Google released its Merchant Center to replace Google Base for product-type submissions. Google Base remains available for other, more content-based listings, but the Merchant Center is where Google will spend the time making tools and improvements for product listings.

The Google Merchant Center interface is very similar to that of Google Base, and you can access all of your feeds, items, and settings by logging into the Merchant Center with your existing username and password.

The Goal of Google Base

Although the role of Google Base has shrunk with the release of Merchant Center, the service is still the best place to list items like classified ads and professional services. Non-product items are best listed on Google Base.

What’s in it for me?

The benefits of Google Base and Google Merchant Center for everyday Internet users and businesses are innumerable.

Some advantages of Google Base and Google Merchant Center include:

- If the content is not yet online, Google will host it for you.

- There is no cost.

- The service is available in English and German interfaces.

- Items you submit to Google Base and Google Merchant Center may be found on Google properties like Google or Google Maps.

Google Base and Google Merchant Center allow the average individual with no HTML knowledge to list items online. These Google services also allow users to get their content into the search results without being reviewed by web crawlers and sitemaps.

On January 12, Google made the surprising announcement that it would no longer censor search results in China. Unfiltered results are banned by the Chinese government because they can lead to banned topics.

The Original Plan

Reluctant to say no to the potential business generated by over a billion people, Google had originally agreed to operate a censored version of their search engine in China.

Google’s rationale was that allowing limited access to content is better than not allowing any access, and plans were moving forward to launch the search engine and supporting websites in censored versions conforming to Chinese government stipulations.

A Rude Awakening

Google’s aims at diplomacy were retracted, however, when it learned of Chinese hackers’ attempts to steal corporate software code and invade Google mailboxes of human rights activists in China.

The Chinese government is denying the cyber attack allegations, but Google’s lawyers are hopeful that the dispute will be resolved in a few weeks. Although in the midst of discussions with the Chinese government, Google claims it will pull out of China unless online censorship becomes less extreme.

Regardless of the outcome, internet and computer analysts believe the conflict marks the beginning of a new era in online censorship: an era in which websites and users will be technologically advanced enough to work around government filters.

QR codes have been widely used in Asia for some times, and Japan is going nuts over them! QR codes can appear on items such as food packaging, restaurants, bus stops, and real estate agents’ windows. When the codes are scanned, appropriate information is displayed on the smart phone, such as suggested recipes, calories and nutritional information, menus, bus timetables, and floor plans for real estate for sale.

Google wants the U.S. to be next to adopt! Starting this week, you’ll be able to scan away at up to 190,000 local businesses throughout the U.S. Google has mailed out window stickers with these QR codes to the most-searched for or clicked-on businesses in its local business directory. Anyone with a QR code reader in their phone can scan it to call up a Google Mobile local directory page . They generally include a map, phone number, directions, address, reviews, and a link to the store’s website. It’s pretty much a mobile version of Google Places. Google is also introducing the business coupons via QR codes. When the code is scanned the smart phone will display a coupon or voucher that can be redeemed in the store directly from the image on the screen. This will prove a great way to enitice someone who is standing outside your store to come in!

Google expects the QR code system to work effectively with the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android, but says it should work with many other smart phones as well. Google is giving away 40,000 Quickmark QR Code Reader apps for the iPhone, which normally cost $1.99 apiece. But you can essentially use any QR code reader. There are a bunch of free ones, and some on Android phones as well.

Find out more..

Everyone is talking about it on Twitter. Everyone is searching on Google and so far, everyone seems to love it!

According to several PC vendors, market acceptance of Windows 7 is already high - much higher than it was for Vista. This is good news for the new PC market and good news for Microsoft!

What are your thoughts on Windows 7, have you checked it out yet?

As Video search is becoming more and more popular, Google wants webmasters who offer video content to be able to get their videos displayed in search results more easily. Both Facebook Share and Yahoo! SeachMonkey RDFa allow for webmasters to specify the important information for video indexing.

The formats are based on simple things like titles and descriptions within the HTML of a video page. Google does suggest that webmasters make their mark up on videos pages appear in the HTML without the execution of JavaScript or flash.

“While we’ve become smarter at discovering this information on our own, we’d certainly appreciate some hints directly from webmasters,” says Google’s Michael Cohen, Product Manager for the Video Search Team.

Google has also kicked off a series of Webmaster Central Blog posts, which are geared towards giving tips to get your videos indexed.

Find out more from the Google Webmaster Central Blog

You type in a search query, and your results are returned from three different search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing), but you do not know which. You are then asked to vote for which search engine you believe returned the best results. The goal is to see what happens when the branding is removed, to see how differently people perceive their results.

Of course, the unique experience of visiting the actual search engines is missing, which is a flaw. But, it’s all in good fun and really opens your eyes to see how much you favor different search engines over the other and exposes your real motives behind who you decide to search with!

Facebook began testing new versions of their real-time search feature with a small group of people last month, and today, the testing phase has ended. 

It searches through the last 30 days of your news feed for status updates, photos, links, videos, and notes shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages you are a fan of. You will not be able to see other member information, unless they have changed their privacy settings to make their content available to everyone. 

Google is also rolling out its own project for real-time search, and its called Caffeine. It could also change how your company ranks in its search results. Two web engineers from the Google’s official blog wrote,

“It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits ‘under the hood’ of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results.”

Click here to try it out.

Bing has received nothing but positive feedback from the SEO community, and has some unique features that are not available on other search engines. One in particular, Quick Tabs, groups most of the search results into a categorical format. Because searchers usually refine their search queries, the results are categorized into multiple sets of search engine results related to the user’s query.

This new layout presents some issues. Bing SERPs that are categorized only show five results for the user’s initial query. For your business to be listed on the first page, you now need to be found within the top five positions. After that, placement is on page two. So, your business is lucky if it is on the top five!

Though it is true that most traditional ranking factors apply to Bing and Yahoo, some of these factors weigh a little more or less now than before. Bing seems to place more emphasis on the age of a domain; the older it is, the higher it most likely will rank. So if you are considering a new microsite, it would be smarter to somehow weave it into your existing domain. If you are starting a new site, it is smarter to use an existing domain that may be expiring or something along those lines.

Bing does not seem to be putting on a popularity contest like Google. Big brands are being forced to take a closer look on ensuring your website has sections supporting certain keyword queries.

Bing also it not making optimized anchor text as important as back links. It is still very important to have other websites point to you.

All of these factors are making it a little more difficult for reporting teams to determine how to report on rankings in a new format.

We’ll see in time whether different is better…