

Google honors Topeka, Kansas by becoming... Topeka. - Groxx
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/different-kind-of-company-name.html

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macrael
I wonder what their april fools plan was before all of this Topeka nonsense.
This seems hastily thrown together compared to their past efforts.

Actually, I am guessing that it would have been their "Translate for Animals"
that ended up on their UK site.

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Groxx
Incomplete thus far, but <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_hoaxes#2010>

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JacobAldridge
Doesn't seem to make sense - the new url isn't working for me -
<http://www.topeka.com/> ??

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BrandonM
Yep, and neither does topeka.google.com, and they don't have that Topeka logo
anywhere else. This seems to be one of Google's weaker April Fool's Day
efforts.

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timmaah
<http://google.com> seems to have the new logo.. but any resulting search page
is branded normally.

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BrandonM
Indeed it does. It definitely did not last night when I replied.

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aliston
"Before our date I topeka'd him with AltaVista"... haha, that's pretty good.

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nhebb
I laughed at that too, but it was the only thing I thought was funny. Most of
the jokes are obvious or forced. I think April's Fools is a good day to stay
off the internet.

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crowsfan85
Another great move by Google.. great PR for honoring Topeka, great April Fools
joke, great way to bring attention to Google broadband, great way to continue
being the "good guys", etc.

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mcantor
I prefer April Fool's jokes that are just plausible enough to fool me for a
few seconds.

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snorkel
Didn't go far enough. They should've changed the branding on all inside pages
too.

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euroclydon
Anyone follow the "brand equity" link?

<http://farm1.static.flickr.com/8/11026499_17a91590c0.jpg>

Is this a dig on China?

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nealmcb
Seems like it could be an Arabic script to me, which could be used in a
language in the Middle East or various other places in Asia, Africa, China
etc:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_alphabet#Languages_writt...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_alphabet#Languages_written_with_the_Arabic_alphabet)

Perhaps fooling around at transcribing the text using a web-based virtual
Arabic terminal (note the right-to-left characters) would help:
[http://www.gawaher.com/index.php?showtopic=3767.html&](http://www.gawaher.com/index.php?showtopic=3767.html&);

Then paste that into google translate, and choose "detect language" in the
"translate from" box :)

But Arabic is tricky with how characters change appearance depending on their
context. And I can't find that V-like character with a stroke at the top,
second in from the right in the lower word that appears on either side of the
door.

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Griever
Google is always on their A-game when it comes to April Fools :)

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extofer
There's no Tokeka Voice or Tmail... but it makes for a good April fools joke
on the more gullible web users

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extofer
I meant Topeka

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huherto
It was good publicity for Topeka. I didn't even know that city existed.

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wtdominey
Lame.

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socratees
Nice try Google!!!

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kunqiana
omg this is obviously april fools

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quizbiz
Doesn't this have any legal consequences? Clearly it's an April Fools but
there are no disclaimers.

