Who remembers the old game show Family Feud on television? The point of the game was to tried guessing the most popular responses to questions. You might pic a name, answer a common question with a preference, or complete a sentence.
Google has created their own version of the game called Google Feud and it essentially uses the same concept but uses Google’s autocomplete search suggestions. The fun part about it is that the thing you would think people would be search for isn’t’ really what you think they’re searching for.
As I got into the game, it presented me with four categories to choose from, the four being “culture”, “people”, “names” and “questions”. After choosing which category you’re feeling lucky with, it’ll present you with an autocomplete statement that you need to try figuring out what is the most popular ones. Oh, and you’ll only have three guesses.
During one game, I chose the “Questions” category, and it asked me how would Google autocomplete the query, “Can you smoke…?” My first guess was “weed”, which it surprisingly, it gave me an X. Next I chose “cigarettes”. Again, I got an X, which I was even more perplexed about. Finally, I chose “drugs”, and for the third time, I got slapped with an X. The top three most popular things people searched for when asking what “can you smoke” was “shrooms”, “catnip” and “weed while pregnant” I guess I was close on the third answer.
Just link in Family Feud, you are surveying people on the street on these questions, and Google Feud uses the most popular searches for those phrases. This is quite different from a survey.
An interesting fact about Google Feud is that Google had designed the game internally back in 2010 according to Google’s Colin McMillen. Colin McMillen said “We used to play Google Suggest Family Feud in the Google Cambridge office, circa 2010. Glad someone’s made a web app.”
Go ahead, play it at googlefeud.com.