OK, I’ll admit it. I’m a googlephile. I don’t want to sound too effusive, so I’ll let the magazine Fast Company provide the praise: Google is the #1 World’s Most Innovative Company. Who am I to argue with that? Despite Nicholas Carr’s recent article in The Atlantic exploring the question, Is Google Making Us Stupid? (in which Google is really just a proxy for the Internet at large), few will deny that the company is connecting the world of information in ways that are really, often, not short of dazzling. And, they’re doing good things.
Clínica Verde is a recent recipient of Google Grants, an in-kind text advertising program to which registered 501(c)(3) organizations can apply. Non-profits awarded Google Grants create AdWords campaigns to promote their charitable activity. Or, in the words of Google, the program “is designed to help organizations extend their public service messages to a global audience in an effort to make a greater impact on the world.”
It’s a great program. As a recipient of Google Grants, we can constantly adjust our keyword campaigns to make our search results more successful and analyze the activity of users in great detail. We can track where visitors to our site come from (including country of origin), how long they stay on each page, the number of impressions and click-throughs each keyword generates … To be honest, there’s so much information available through the program that I haven’t yet studied it all in full.
If you’re involved with a nonprofit, I would recommend you apply. The vetting period takes a number of months, but it’s worth the process. So, yeah, thanks Google! Even if it is “artificial intelligence,” it’s intelligence that advances the cause.
