Internet stars band together to better online searching with #GoogleMoLang

Ryan Morales, Google Philippines Country Marketing Manager, talks about the online game “Google Mo Lang,” where users can learn Google Search tips and tricks with the help of local Internet stars.

#GoogleMoLang, a movement that calls on Filipinos to maximize the full potential of online search. The creators are early Internet adopters who have utilized the web to advance their talents and have proven there’s a wide range of other useful things to be explored online.

Internet content creators like comedic talent Mikey Bustos, Marco Ho or Bogart the Explorer and his manager Jako de Leon, and restaurateur Erwan Heusaff heavily depend on online search in acquiring information and developing shareable content for their audience. But based on experience, limited know-hows in online search are often frustrating when people can't make sense of the results or can’t seem to find what they’re looking for. 

Seeing how online search impacts their work and practically every person’s life, the creators banded with OPM band Sponge Cola and heartthrob group Chicser to form #GoogleMoLang.

“The net has become a home for Internet content creators like Bogart, and we feel the responsibility to make information more accessible for everyone. #GoogleMoLang is a reminder that at every step of people’s search online, Google Search is there to assist them on their quest,” as Marco describes the movement as getting people to see ways in which Google Search can be used in everyday life. 

As part of the movement, the Internet stars, together with Google, devised an online game “Google Mo Lang” (http://www.google.com.ph/campaigns/googlemolang/) where netizens take a virtual adventure to create the perfect night. The interactive game simulates real-life setting by prompting users to use the search engine—through a host of tips and tricks—as they make decisions on how they'd like their night to continue. 

“#GoogleMoLang aims to deepen Filipinos’ knowledge and use of Search. It is the surest shortcut to most items that concern or interest people, so why not maximize it?” Mikey said. 

Erwan, who manages the The Fat Kid Inside blog where he shares ways and recipes on healthy eating habits, said Search helps a lot in developing new recipes and in bringing the advocacy closer to the reach of many Filipinos. “I use it everyday, both for my blog and to my day-to-day work. I use it to research emerging trends on food recipes as well as key items people are looking for, what people are hungry for. Being able to find them and pull them together in one simple step makes my work so much easier,” said Erwan. 

For the young boy band members of Chicser, Google Search has become an aide. “It has a strong impact on us because through it, we can do and know things fast, from homework to new ideas for our videos," said Biboy Cabingon, Chicser member. 

Sponge Cola’s lead guitarist Erwin Armovit turns to Google Search to find the music materials he needs. “When learning new songs, Search comes in handy in finding the chords and lyrics. When scouting for the latest playing equipment, guitars, amps, and pedals for new techniques when recording, Search is our gateway for quick access to information.”

According to the band’s lead vocalist Yael Yuzon, Search plays an important role in leaving people no more in the dark. “Information is everywhere. It's just a matter of how people can get access to it. Google Search bridges you from being uninformed to informed. Having the right information that you need is already half a battle won.”

Internet stars collaborate for #GoogleMoLang movement. Clockwise from left: Erwin Armovit (Sponge Cola), Tricky Ikki, Jako de Leon (Bogart the Explorer manager), Erwan Heussaff, Chicser members Cav Villafuerte, Owy Posadas, Oliver Posadas, Ranz Kyle, Ully Basa, and Biboy Cabingon, Ted Mark Cruz (Sponge Cola), Mikey Bustos, Gosh Dilay (Sponge Cola).

“Google Search ‘listens’ to what people exactly mean by their queries and give people back what they truly need. It shapes our lifestyle by helping us make the right decisions from the best available information,” said Ryan Morales, Google Philippines Country Marketing Manager. 

About Google Inc.

Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information. Google’s innovations in web search and advertising have made its website a top Internet property and its brand one of the most recognized in the world.

Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

Google Search

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful— Google Search is at the core of this mission, allowing users to easily find the information they need amongst the Web’s wealth of information. There are many ways you can use Google Search for life’s little shortcuts, including checking the weather forecase2et, searching for the current time in different geographic locations, calculator, unit conversion, and public data searches, among others.

• Knowledge Graph: The Knowledge Graph allows you to instantly get detailed information about the things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more.
• Voice search: You can now search Google by saying your search term, instead of typing it. This is a convenient way to search if you speak faster than you type or if you're not sure how to spell your search term. This works on the Google Search App for iOS, Android and Chrome browsers for laptops and desktops.

Google Trends

Are searches for your brand increasing over time? Are consumers searching for you or your competitor? Learn about your brand (or anything you may be interested in!) with the Google Trends tool. Explore by search term and see the related top searches and rising searches for a particular time period, location, category, and type of search (whether web, image, news, product, or YouTube search).

• Top searches: This refers to search terms with the most significant level of interest. These terms are related to the term you've entered; if you didn't enter in a search term, the top searches will be related to the category or country/territory you've chosen.
• Rising searches: These highlight searches that have experienced significant growth in a given time period, with respect to the preceding time period. So if you're comparing data for a search term during 2006, the time period serving as the basis of comparison is 2005.

Google Search Tips

Get facts for your research fast

Researching can sometimes be frustrating especially if you can’t seem to find what you’re looking for. Fortunately, with Google’s enhanced search functionalities, you can find answers immediately with the right know-how. Here are some tips to get facts fast:

• Get facts in one place with Knowledge graph. When looking for information about a place or a person, Google Search provides answers through a graph of facts and connections to help you understand and explore the topic better. Try searching for “Pyramids of Giza” or even Bohol’s “Chocolate Hills” and Albay’s active volcano, “Mayon Volcano” and get facts on the right side of the Search page.

• Access public data right on your fingertips. It’s now easy to get public data from World Bank by just typing in keywords on Google Search. Try searching ‘Philippine population’ or ‘GDP Philippines’ and get statistics on top of search results.

• Word definitions made easy. There’s no need to open the dictionary when looking for definitions. Type in “define:” and the word you need the definition for. The result will appear on top of the page.

• Calculate anything on Search. You can calculate anything right on Google Search, saving you precious time and giving you the right answers fast. Calculate simple formula or even try complicated ones like 5*9+(sqrt 10)^3.

• All the news you need in one page. Need to be updated on current affairs? Google News helps you see all the headlines and summary of articles you need. Customize what category you want to see—whether technology, local news, business, or even fashion—for a more precise news search.

Search with surgical precision

Aside from typing in keywords, you can be more specific in your search to get the right results on Google Search. Here are some useful search operators to use:

• Search within a specific website. When looking for information in a specific website, use the “site:” operator when searching. For example, when searching for Presidential Decrees, search “Presidential Decrees site:gov.ph.” The results will provide all searches related to it within the government site.

• Trim down results by file type. Scouring web results for a specific file is frustrating, especially if you forgot the exact title of the filename. Use the search operator “filetype:” followed by the file extension. For example, when searching for population data in Excel format, search “population Philippines filetype:xls” and all search results in Excel format will appear.

• Utilize +, -, and quotations when searching. Add and exclude words, as well as search for the exact phrase using search operators +, -, and “”, respectively. For example, if you want to search for previous Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summits but not the 2015 summit in Albay, search for “APEC "summit" -Philippines.” The results will contain the term APEC summit but not with the term “Philippines.”

Discover facts from other countries

Having knowledge about different countries will definitely be useful for school as much as it is useful for traveling. Here are some tips in getting facts about other countries:

• Know other countries’ currency. Type in “What is the currency of x country?” and get the answer immediately. You can even go further by finding out the current exchange rate for that currency. For example, type in “convert 100 MYR to Philippine peso” and get the converted amount without using a calculator.

• Find out the time in other countries. Knowing the current time in other countries is easy as typing in “time” and the city or country. The result will be displayed on top of the search results, complete with the current time and date.

• Check out the weather abroad. Check out how cold the weather is in the South Pole or how hot it is in UAE by typing in “weather” and the location. Get the temperature, precipitation, and even wind predictions for hours during the day.

Voice Search

You can use Voice Actions with Google Search to get directions, send messages, and perform a number of other common tasks on your Android device. Simply touch the Microphone icon in a search box, or by saying "Google" when the Google Now screen is open. Voice Actions are available in French, Italian, German, Spanish, English, and Japanese; this sheet lists out the currently available commands in English only.

Tasks on your phone (Android* only)

Say	Followed by	Examples
"Open..."	App name	"Open Gmail"
"Go to..."	Search string or URL	"Go to Google.com"
“Call...”	Contact name	“Call Mom”
“Text...” or “Send Text...”	Contact name, then content of text	“Text Marty I’ll be five minutes late”
“Email...” or “Send Email...”	Contact name, then content of email One or more of: "To" & contact names, "Cc" & contact names, "Bcc" & contact names, "Subject" & subject text "Message" & message text (speak punctuation)	"Send email to Juan Santos, subject, new shoes, message, I can’t wait to show you my new shoes, period."
“Create a calendar event...” or “Schedule an appointment for...”	"Event description" & "day/date" & "time"	"Create a calendar event: Dinner in Makati, Saturday at 7:00PM"
"Set alarm for..." or “Set timer for...”	as "10:45 a.m." or "20 minutes from now,"; "Label" & name of alarm	"Set alarm for 5:45 p.m., label, cook dinner" “Set timer for 10 minutes.”
"Note to self..." “Remind me to...”	Message; will send yourself an email	"Note to self: remember the milk" “Remind me to pay the bills”
“Remind me to ...at...(time) or (place)”	Sets a geo-tagged or time-tagged reminder; next time you’re in that location a notification will pop up.	“Remind me to water the plants at home.” “Remind me to call Mom at 7 o’clock.”
"Scan a barcode"	Scan a barcode or QR code to learn more about a product.	"Scan a barcode" and hold barcode in front of the device's camera.
"Post to Google+..."	What you want posted to Google+	"Post to Google+ I'm going out of town."

Finding out quick information

Say	Followed by	Examples
Your search query		"bike shoes"
“When is...”	Event name, any named day	“When is Easter this year?” “When is Chinese New Year next year?” “When is the Superbowl?”
“What is...”	Term you want defined	“What is YOLO?”
“What’s the phone number of...”	Name of business, city	“What’s the phone number of Fully Booked in BGC?”
“What’s the weather...”	Ask in all the ways you would ask about the weather. Without saying a specific city it searches based on your current location. You can also find out for a different city.	“What’s the weather like tomorrow?” “What will the weather be like in Manila?” “Am I going to need a jacket in Antipolo?” “Do I need an umbrella tomorrow?”
“What’s the stock price of...” or “What did ... close at today?”	Name of company	“What’s the stock price of Coca-Cola?”
Calculations “What is...divided by...?” or “What’s...plus...%?”	Numbers you want to calculate	“What is 236 divided by 3?" “What’s 56 plus 9%?”
“Who is...?”	Name of person, or fact about the person	“Who was Copernicus?” “Who is David Beckham’s wife?”
“How do I...?”	Query involving “how to” e.g. recipes, DIY	“How do I make adobo?”
“How tall is...?”		“How tall is Mount Everest?”
“Show me...” or “What does the ... look like?”	Name of picture or object	“Show me a picture of the Mona Lisa” “What does the Eiffel Tower look like?”

Navigation

Say	Followed by	Examples
"Map of"	Address, name, business name, type of business, or other location	"Map of Rizal Park, Manila."
“Where is...”	Address, name, business name, type of business, or other location	“Where is Intramuros?”
"Directions to" or "Navigate to"	Address, name, business name, type of business, or other destination	"Directions to España Blvd., Quezon Drive, Manila."
“How do I get to ... by ...”	Destination name; public transit mode	“How do I get to the airport by bus?”
“How far is”	Address, city, or other location	“How far is Quirino Grandstand?”
“Where is the nearest” or “Nearby...”	Business, utility etc. such as gas station, ATM, bank, restaurants	“Where is the nearest Starbucks?

Entertainment

Say	Followed by	Examples
Name of sports team or athlete “Who are the ... playing?” “Did the ... win?”		“Gilas Pilipinas” “Federer” “Who are the Giants playing?”
“Show me the trailer for...” or “Play me a video of...”	Name of movie, video, scene	“Show me the trailer for Skyfall” “Play me a video of someone playing a banjo”
"What's this song?"	Make sure song is audible near phone	When you hear a song, ask "What's this song?"
"Listen to..."	Words to search YouTube for, such as the name of a song, artist, or album.	"Listen to: Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Travel

Say	Followed by	Examples
“Translate...to...”	Phrase you want translated into a different language	“Translate where is the nearest bus stop to German"
“What time is it in...”	City name, location	“What time is it in Paris?”
Currency conversion “How much is...in...?”	Value into target currency	"How much is 167 Euros in dollars?"
Flight times “When does flight ... take off?” or “When does flight...arrive?”	Flight number	“When does United flight 901 take off?”

*Some voice actions’ availability will depend on the version of Android your device is running. For best results, use devices installed with Android 4.1+

**To check your regional setting for voice searches, within the Google search app go to Settings > Voice > Language > English > (choose your language dialect)