Yesterday, Google unveiled a "Chrome experiment," a promotion for the new Wizard of Oz prequel. It's one of the coolest things I've seen on the web in weeks, a reminder that for all our harping about the wonders of mobile apps, the web is where a lot of the quieter but equally impressive innovation is taking place. This is a gorgeous, interactive game that takes you around the dusty carnival fields of Kansas, letting you pilot a hot air balloon through a tornado, create a short video with your webcam, and more.
Of course, it all ends up with a trip to Oz, where you see a trailer for the upcoming movie Oz: The Great And Powerful, which Wikipedia tells me stars Johnny Depp as the Wizard and also "Zach Braff as the voice of Finley the Flying Monkey/Frank, Oscar's circus assistant," so, you know, this movie may or may not be awful. But! The site/ad is really amazing--it really captures the small-town wonder of a slightly mystical circus, it's smooth and easy to navigate but also very technically impressive. Says Google:
You'll need a reasonably powerful computer (and Google Chrome--it didn't work in Firefox for us) to handle it, but if you're an Oz fan, it's worth checking out. Try it here, and read more about it on Google's Chrome Blog.
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