Topeka: Google's April Fool's 2010 Joke

Judging from this image, it looks like Google changed not only its online name to Topeka but also the name on the sign on its headquarters. Here is what prompted “Topeka” for Google’s April Fool's 2010 move.

On its official blog Google explains why it decided to change its name to Topeka.

Topeka is the capital city of the state of Kansas. Earlier this month, the mayor of Topeka, Bill Bunten, announced that he had renamed the city to Google. This was a big surprise even for Google. Bunten says the name change is unofficial, but they are having fun with it, reports CNN. Bunten hopes this way Topeka will raise its profile in the competition for Google's Fiber for Communities Program, which will bring an ultra-high-speed fiber optic network to selected American communities.

Thus, Google, after having fair amount of discussion, decided to respond to Mayor Bunten's move and change its name to Topeka as 2010 April Fool's day joke.

Google jokes the Topeka name change will have some consequences. From now on, all correspondence will need to be mailed to Topeka Inc. instead of Google Inc. The company employees will be known as "Topekers" or "Topekans." It may take some time for people to get used to the brand name change.

Here are some proper uses for Topeka, Google suggests.

For example, we used to say "I did a Google search about a topic," now we may want to say "I did a Topeka search." This is also OK: Instead of saying he Googled this topic for a research, you may want to say he Topeka'ed this topic for research. Absolutely forbidden: “He topeka’ed the topic using AltaVista.”

In any case, Google made a great April Fool's joke in 2010. Let's see how the investors, not knowing about I,t react when the markets open. Topeka search is great, but we are looking forward to Google's return back to its normal brand name.

Written by Armen Hareyan
HULIQ.com