Hey Tommy - your’s was the only google entry I found for “The alogorithm constantly finds Jesus” - I saw this today - full billboard size with nothing else visible - it was on the back of an ad for the new Hilary Swank movie The Reaping. I have no religious affiliation but my curiosity is definitely piqued!

By Lynn on 09 Apr 2007 @ 1:29 pm

I found “©2007 Ask.com” in the bottom corner of the poster (not visible in the picture). I’m not sure what they are advertising without mentioning their brand name.

By Tommy on 09 Apr 2007 @ 2:05 pm

Same here, I saw this billboard in San Francisco and then I googled it and this blog post was the only hit… crazy.

By Dan on 09 Apr 2007 @ 2:40 pm

I saw 3 versions of this in the LA area today, all with the same vagueness and style (all-caps, no brand). The first was something like “The algorithm is from Jersey.” The second was the above “The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.” Then the third was “The algorithm killed Jeeves.” I’m not sure what the Jesus reference means (a popular search term, I guess), but the Ask.com connection definitely makes sense.

By KMG on 10 Apr 2007 @ 11:10 pm

Saw a new one today driving south on Sepulveda:

“The Unabomber hates the algorithm.”

I think that was it.

By Alex on 13 Apr 2007 @ 12:17 am

Yes, the series of billboards are for Ask.com and at first I was confused to. I started searching ask.com and couldn’t find anything. I looked on Google and read somewhere that ask.com used to be askjeeves.com but a while back they got rid of him (or killed him).

I did some more searches on ask.com and then I realized the whole point of the ad campaign.

We are now having a conversation about ask.com, researching ask.com, and (most importantly) using ask.com!
I’d say Mission Accomplished for ask.com

By Jack on 14 Apr 2007 @ 9:58 am

I saw this for the first time today on a billboard on my way from Brooklyn to Manhattan…. it is spreading… if it is ask maybe Barry Diller is having an epiphany

By AussieWebmaster on 17 Apr 2007 @ 12:23 pm

Thank for the heads up, that billboard on La Brea has been driving me nuts for a week. I tend to boycott products with irritating advertising, so their campaign has failed!!! Mwahahaha!!! Not that I used it much anyway, google just works better…

By Beardog on 17 Apr 2007 @ 5:19 pm

Is it just me, or have all the slogans so far targeted terms begining with “J”? Jesus, Jersey, Jeeves… An obsession, or just more Ask nuttyness?

By Katinabag on 18 Apr 2007 @ 9:20 am

But when I searched the phrases on Ask.com, nothing was found. I’d say Ask.com is failing in this billboard.

By Rebecca Graves on 19 Apr 2007 @ 12:46 pm

not a bad ploy for ask.com but i saw the billboard today in san francisco and went to google. they didn’t get me.

By Anonymous on 19 Apr 2007 @ 10:47 pm

Mission accomplished? Maybe.. If their mission was to get a few extra pageviews. I would only switch away from google if they proved to me that they were superior. I don’t believe they are superior, and my belief is corroborated by their ad campaign which has absolutely nothing to say about their product!

By Booger on 20 Apr 2007 @ 10:02 am

By the way, these are all over NYC as well.

By Booger on 20 Apr 2007 @ 10:02 am

I’m in with the crowd who doesn’t use products with confusing advertising. This type of advertising works only with idiots. The ad makes no sense and my curiosity was peeked because of the word Jesus once again, being used for profits. Gross! I’ve used ASK before, never again.

By S on 22 Apr 2007 @ 7:17 pm

I found a huge billboard here:
http://www.webanalyticsbook.com/archives/714

By Webanalyticsbook on 23 Apr 2007 @ 11:03 am

I think its a way to get us to spell algorithm correctly, cause if you don’t yu won’t find any refenrences to this billboard.

By Maureen on 24 Apr 2007 @ 6:48 am

I’m assuming the goal of this campaign is to create ‘buzz’ but it’s not doing that great of a job seeing as this is the only blog dedicated to finding the answer (no offense, Tommy). Though I have heard round the bend that a TV campaign is about to start up, so maybe our ‘mystery’ will be solved then…

By Zip on 27 Apr 2007 @ 11:58 am

There’s another that says the algorithm is banned in China, and another that says Jersey is from Rutgers or something like that

Also, I found this site through ask.com and not google

By Jeeves Was Long Dead on 27 Apr 2007 @ 8:55 pm

Anyone recalls how Google used to put up stuff to be deciphered on the billboards, as part of the recruitment process?

May be there is an algorithm, when put in Ask search engine, would spit out a job offer right on your screen.

By Sravan on 03 May 2007 @ 10:18 am

Nobody seems to get this. I think it’s referencing the phrase ‘have you found jesus?’ Have you found jesus yet? Because our search engine can find him. *Constantly*. Wow.
Fuck ask.com

By ben on 06 May 2007 @ 12:09 am

[…] Cartoon Blog has the Algorithm phrases in tiny print at the bottom of their site. Tommy Keswick poses with the Jesus billboard in a “Join The Flock” […]

By Ask.com Algorithm Billboards » Online Print Found and Reviewed at Duncan’s TV on 07 May 2007 @ 2:33 pm

this has been driving me crazy for weeks saw this on cross bronx espwy and nj turn billboads no one i know understands then spoke to a thirteen year old and she directed me to ASK

By portia on 11 May 2007 @ 7:44 am

boom boom boom “calling” all marketing campaigners Jesus is now in Jesus is now in please get on the marketing band wagon welcome Starbucks and now ask.com if anyone is seeking the Lord these are the places you’ll find them…thank God for marketing!

By Fiona on 12 May 2007 @ 6:55 pm

Hi my name is Andrew and this is one of the forums which we will post this lead on.
We at www.ask.com have posted up in several different locations on bulletin boards our new campaign.
Behind each saying lies a meaning. The meaning has something in common with each specific state and city where the bulletin is posted.
Here are key questions to ask yourself:
1.)What do Jersey, China, New York and California each have in common?
2.) Which two words are repeated in each and every billboard?
3.) The Forbidden City in China is located next to which square? How does that square sound like ‘Teomo’?

The fact-of-the matter is that this is a hard sequence to follow and thus those which put together the puzzle pieces correctly will be contacted for an interview with the search engine for a series of tests followed by a job offer at our top rank in the company.
Answers accompanied first with your:
A.) Name
B.) State
C.) Current Place of Employment
D.) Education

Please have e-mailed to the following address: Novickaine@hotmail.com with “Ask and Answer” in the Subject bar.
Yours Faithfully,
Andrew N.

By Andrew Novick on 20 May 2007 @ 1:36 pm

I think it is sad that Ask.com references Jesus just to attract visitors to the site. It is sacrilege as far as I am concerned, and a whole slew of individuals are now against ask.com for doing such a thing.

By Ryan on 11 Jun 2007 @ 8:08 am

On the xkcd webcomic pages there are similar phrases in very small font…I don’t know which came first…

By C.J. on 12 Jun 2007 @ 1:38 pm

The info below is from the April archives of www.xkcd.com…

Billboards
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
————————
There’s some strange text on billboards around New York. I passed these four this weekend:

THE ALGORITHM CONSTANTLY FINDS JESUS
THE ALGORITHM KILLED JEEVES
THE ALGORITHM IS BANNED IN CHINA
THE ALGORITHM IS FROM JERSEY

It’s clearly a viral marketing campaign and seems to be by Ask.com. I like puzzles like this, but at the moment it doesn’t seem to go anywhere — if you Google it, you just get blogs talking about the odd billboards. That’s not really very much fun.

It occurs to me that the sort of people who would be curious enough to go to Google and type them in are probably the sort of people who would like xkcd, so maybe we should create a twist in the puzzle. For those of you who have blogs or other sites, feel free to create links to xkcd.com with those billboard lines as the link text. I put the phrases at the bottom of xkcd.com so it won’t be filtered out as a Googlebomb.

By RTB on 19 Jul 2007 @ 2:39 am

It’s inherently a metaphor for the way things are organized in a sense. We realize that Ask is the new way to access various information and they are attempting to utilize a market that is slightly more social and slightly more human than that of google. They are making an attempt at better associating concepts than google. It is inherently possible that they have discovered very deep human trends in categorizing this mass of associative information. It is possible that from there Ask has been able to draw conclusions on a more grand scale than just their search engine. But saying anything more than that or disclosing that information directly would be worldly scientific advancement, but it would relinquish their strong economic advantage.
So inherently instead of saying that they understand how everything works or that they comprehend a system so fully that they could use it associatively to comprehend the entirety of every other system they instead say that the algorithm constantly finds Jesus. A metaphor by which any philosopher or mathematician or layman could look at and say “wow, maybe”.
Not only do they say that we always inherently find what we are ultimately looking for with that statement. But the Ask advertising team takes that a step forward while maintaining the mystery behind the whole thing, they say that our system, in our search for understanding, we can help you understand. It’s a clever multi-leveled advertisement.

In short, the algorithm is, more or less, a metaphor for a social-associative freedom. Of course this metaphor can run as deep or as shallow as you want it to…

Or you can take it to mean absolutely nothing, regardless, it has created a buzz.

By Robert Fagan on 09 Sep 2007 @ 10:54 pm

Any ideas from the above post are open for discussion at my email:
robbie.fagan@gmail.com

By Robert Fagan on 09 Sep 2007 @ 11:09 pm