The Greatest Google Merchandise

Google on Thursday said it would supply Gmail stickers to anyone who sends in a self-addressed stamped envelope. It's an offer the company may come to regret.If even a significant fraction of the millions of Gmail users in the world take Google up on its offer, the company will have to hire back some of the 10,000 contract workers it's laying off just to handle the workload.

Gmail fans, and those wishing to help Google learn about how offline systems scale, should send a SASE, with or without an explanatory note, to:

The sticker set includes a glittery "Gmail m-velope," one of three bookplate-style stickers, and a sheet of keyboard shortcut stickers.

This is by no means the only worthwhile bit of Google merchandise to be had.

The first place to start is the Google Store, which carries a variety of semi-useful products. There's even a "green" section, for products that are purportedly eco-friendly.

Those missing the neo-hippy aesthetic that Apple, with its candy-colored iMacs, revived 10 years ago and then abandoned may wish to consider Google's "Summer of Love Translucent Wide Body Pen."

An interesting unofficial gallery of Google gear can be found in Flickr's Google Gear group pool. I rather like the Google-branded It's-It.

CafePress lists more than 30,000 products, based on more than 1,000 different designs, that are associated with the keyword "google." Many of them have nothing to do with the company, but many do.

The only one that struck me as particularly clever is the Periodic Table of the Internet, which, of course, features Google as one of the elements.

There's a similar selection on Zazzle.

And eBay has 139 pages of pages of auction listings that mention Google. If you're looking to get in trouble for spamming, you have until the evening of Dec. 8 to bid on "10 Gmail Google Email Accounts Unique IP's & Caches."

Given that it's not crystal clear from the auction description whether the seller is selling access to Gmail accounts or IP address numbers used by Gmail users, would-be spammers might be better off registering 10 free Gmail accounts on their own, rather than paying the seller $9.95.

Though online logos aren't physical merchandise, Google collectors may nonetheless wish to look into the possibilities of unauthorized Google art. Start at Logoogle.com.

For those traveling to China, there's almost certain to be an abundance of fake Google-related products, as can be seen from the number of stores that sport the Google brand without authorization.

Perhaps the best Google product is one that doesn't exist: Google Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project.