Google is letting the TV show 'Silicon Valley' post fake news to search results
If you search "Silicon Valley" or "Silicon Valley HBO" on Google, you'll find some nuggets about Stanford's damaged robots, Hooli's soaring stock price, and an unexpected CEO change at Pied Piper.
These aren't real news stories, but satirical posts based on events in the television show, which had its third season premiere on Sunday night:
"Silicon Valley" published the stories straight to Google's search results through a tool called Posts that the company first launched in January to let presidential candidates make info on their campaigns more easily accessible.
The search giant calls the Posts tool "an experimental new podium on Google" and it has tested the feature with small businesses as well as other entertainers like Jimmy Kimmel and the musician LANY.
The new tool is not for ads, and Google is not currently charging businesses and brands for the privilege of posting, nor forming official partnerships with any of them. The Posts feature is also not tied to Google+, which also allows brands to publish content.
"We're continuing to experiment with the look and feel of this feature, including exploring other potenital use cases," a Google spokesperson tells Business Insider.
This isn't the first time the search giant has given a nod to the show though, which makes fun of all things techie.
When Google announced its enormous corporate restructuring in June, it slipped in a subtle reference by linking to the website of the fictional company Hooli, which is loosely based on Google.