In the annals of Google’s April Fool’s jokes, this is a pretty good one.
Google has a proud tradition of greeting April with bogus blog postings (announcements of plans to colonize Mars with Virgin’s Richard Branson, the launch of Google Romance, Pigeon Rank, etc.), and, true to form, the company has come out with a new round of gags.
Of these, the centerpiece is the startling announcement that Google is no longer Google at all. No, from this day forward, the shingle hanging in front of 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway will read “Topeka.”
Why Topeka? [Eric Schmidt explains](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/different-kind-of-company-name.html):
“Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture.”