Okay. This might be considered overkill in some circles to have two stories about the SI Swimsuit Issue. But I wanted to brag on my friend Chris Gibbons excellent Flash design for a project that launched today to promote the joint Sports Illustrated/NBC effort to find the next SI Swimsuit Model. A project I was involved with last year, this time around, it’s been expanded to include a six-part reality series (Wendesdays 8/7 on NBC). Viewers will vote to choose between the last two finalists in a later episode. The Flash treatment here is very slick. And the material isn’t too bad either.

When a company declares that one of it’s guiding pricinples is to ‘not do evil’ in their S1 filing, you would expect that their approach to promoting themselves is going to take a slightly different tact than the usual Fortune 500. To that end, Google has already used the resources of innovative agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the folks behind Burger King’s Subservient Chicken and Method Soap’s ‘Come Clean‘ campaign.

The first work by Crispin was a series of billboards in hi-tech areas of the country seeking job applicants for Google featuring the following statement: “{first prime digit found in consecutive digits of e}.com.”

Anyway, the New York Post is reporting that Google is looking to expand their conventional advertising in light of greater competition from Yahoo and Microsoft. Google nor Crispin would comment.