I am very, very fond of Google, so it kind of pains me to point this out, especially when they’re trying to be cute and in the spirit of today’s manufactured holiday, but:
Update: A commenter on another blog theorizes that this is an homage to Debbie Googe, bassist for My Bloody Valentine. Maaaaybe, but if that’s true, it’s weak, dorky, and way too obscure for the millions of people who use the site.
February 14, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Oh my God!
It’s still up.
February 14, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Send the word asap to all the copy nerds you know. This is our great revenge!
February 14, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Poor dumb Google. They still haven’t fixed it–it’s been up like that for hours…
February 14, 2007 at 5:54 pm
There are those who argue that the strawberry stem is supposed to be the “l.” As a copy editor burning to say “Ha-ha,” that’s not my preferred explanation. But even in that case, the bad design betrays a haughty contempt for typographical clarity–and look where that got ‘em! Looking dumb! Ha-ha!
February 14, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Upon closer examination, it looks like the stem “l” is a little closer to the left that the chocolate swirl “g”, The chocolate swirl hoop of the “g” does veer more to the left, but the “l” clearly comes first.
Now they are GOOLGLE
February 14, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Oops, I mean goolge
February 14, 2007 at 8:36 pm
lol bethie.
February 17, 2007 at 8:56 am
A few years ago, there were many people in the UK who used to refer to the Guardian newspaper as “the Grauniad”, to show our affection for the inevitable copy editor errors for which that newspaper could be relied upon! The name doesn’t really hold nowadays, alas.
This apparent error by Google however is, like the new Coca Cola, an obvious ploy by Google itself to generate much copy heat within the blogosphere and thereby get oodles of free advertising.
Seems it worked! Give that Google ad exec (former copy editor) their prize!
February 17, 2007 at 6:11 pm
this was sooo funny. and i seriously doubt the homage…
February 27, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Looks as though Googe has a record of cavalier disregard for typographical detail:
http://thebrowser.blogs.fortune.com/2007/02/26/googles-troubling-typo/