Thursday, April 1, 2010

Is Google Really Changing its Name?

So is Google really called "Topeka" now? According to the search box, yes. Why? They say they like the name and quoted, “all roads lead to Kansas.” When you click on the Google logo, there is a long explanation for the change. This is big news and may take some time to get used to. Personally, I don’t see it as a smart move, but then again, I’m not as in-tune as the Google promotional team is.

So what is Google and how did they originate? Here’s the story from Wikipedia.

Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships between websites. They called this new technology PageRank, where a website's relevance was determined by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages, that linked back to the original site. A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy. Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub," because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. Eventually, they changed the name to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word "googol", the number one followed by one hundred zeros, which was meant to signify the amount of information the search engine was to handle. Originally, Google ran under the Stanford University website, with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998, at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California.

Article link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

So the next time you want to say to someone “Google it,” remember, it’s “Topeka it” now! Or could it be April 1st?

12 comments:

K.J.R. said...

I believe it's an April Fool's Day joke. It will only be Topeka for a day.

Michael Druxman said...

Ask me on April 2nd.

Eric J. Krause said...

I love April 1st on the Internet. So many go to great lengths for April Fool's Jokes. Kudos to Google! Er, I mean, Topeka! :-D

Unknown said...

This one is even better than Topeka.
http://www.google.com/google-d-s/promos/storage.html

Carol said...

Dang Tracy! I wish I had that one first! That is just too funny! "Stored my condo..."
Hey gang, thanks for having a great sense of humor!

Joseph J. Breunig 3rd said...

I saw an earlier story. It's a marketing gimmick for Topeka, Kansas to help promote tourism. Google is not about to 'give up' its well-earned brand name.

Joe Breunig
Reaching Towards His Unbounded Glory

Unknown said...

Hahaha! This is almost as good as the Writing Tip of the Day some of us get, that the English Language Communications Center will remove the letter "Z" from the alphabet and all related materials by June 1st. What would happend to the alphabet song? It wold end in an "S", then there would be two. ZZTop would become SSTop. Bees Buzzing would be Bees Bussing. Okay, I'll stop. I've seen more April Fool's jokes today, some sophisticated--than I remember in yeasr past. Could it have something to do with our economy, or our government bickering, or so much bad news, everyone is taking a break? Celia

Anonymous said...

It's only a April's fool joke and a lampoon on Topeka's who changed their name to Google to try to be selected into Google's program.


http://www.examiner.com/x-39728-San-Jose-Technology-Examiner~y2010m4d1-The-real-meaning-behind-Googles-Topeka-name-change-joke


Google does April Fools day jokes almost every year.

Janna Leadbetter said...

I saw it, too. My vote is it's a prank. :)

Thanks for the background info!

Tara McClendon said...

That's funny. I hadn't paid attention to that, so it's good someone pointed it out.

Unknown said...

Funny - was just "dropping" by and saw you posted the same thing I did yesterday...I'm sure many people did, it's just the first time I've seen another. Have a great day!

whiteshark0121 said...

Great article, I always keep myself looking for new tips and ways on how to improve my writing and one of my favorite mentor on learning how to write a book is Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul