Fans of HBO’s tech-culture show Silicon Valley will attest that the alternate-universe version of the very real innovation district of California is quite easy to lose yourself in and a good amount of work goes into making it a fairly believable setting for a TV show. Companies rise and fall, startups dance about the bigger, more established corporations and bigshots live their dreams or see everything slip through their fingers, much like the real world’s version of the iconic Silicon Valley. For that extra touch of realism, though, a real-life Silicon Valley giant decided to lend a hand. Googling “Silicon Valley” will show you results related to the real-world location, but buried in those results will be the articles you see above.
The articles depict the world of HBO’s hit TV show, showing its ups and downs as if the on-screen and in-universe happenings were just as real as Apple’s sales slowing or BlackBerry moving their focus to software. Clicking on any of the links will present you with a Google+ page that shows summaries of the articles, as well as links that lead to incredibly realistic tech news sites that cover the in-universe happenings of Silicon Valley in surprising detail. Those who didn’t know otherwise may actually think that a “Bam-Bot” unit was damaged during tests, or may be inclined to Google Jack Barker and Pied Piper to form an opinion on whether or not he’d make a good CEO for the fictional firm. Of course, those hungry for tech news may wind up being turned on to the show by these realistic and well-written faux news articles.
To make things a bit more confusing for the uninitiated and a bit more fun for fans, Google and HBO run these pages hand in hand, meaning there may be more articles popping up as the season and the series progress. This trend of real life going hand in hand with media is nothing new, but has never been implemented in quite this fashion before, with nods to mundane realism aimed at the show, rather than trying to bring elements of fantasy into the real world. Check out the source link for all three of the articles available thus far.