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Yahoo Map Engineers Prank Google
pete314 writes "Yahoo engineers apparently couldn't help themselves, and Yahoo Maps had a great prank on the folks at Google. The beta of the new Yahoo Maps for a short while listed 'The Dude's Fish Store' at 1600 Amphiteatre Parkway in Mountain View, CA. The address is better known as the headquarters for Yahoo's competitor Google." From the post: "The phone number listed is for guy named Ruben Suterwitz (or that's what it sounds like on his voicemail). His voicemail gives the option to get assistance, forwarding callers to the Google front desk. There are several hints pointing to a Google prank. The search engine's co-founder Sergey Brin was born in Russia and both he and his buddy Larry Page were students at Stanford when they founded the company. "
I'll wait for google guys response, to have the complete laugh. Meanwhile, i'll keep looking for the fish store...
//WR
Why didn't they replace it with a shop that sells glasses ,Grants Goggles or some such.
Would have made a bit more sense.
Other than that it just seems a bit mean really.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Cool! With Google, MSN and Yahoo I can have maps on three different computers now!
(...continues reading his buzzword magazin...)
What are the chances that Yahoo engineers did this vs. the chances some third party setup a yahoo.biz website for "The Dude's Fish Store" and Yahoo! Maps indexed it and added it to their mapping system? I vote for the third party candidate.
Seems to me its easy for anyone to setup a site with Yahoo and it would be easy for Yahoo to use data already in their systems to make their map more complete or even just as a starting point for adding data to the new system. Unless its part of Google's unique business strategy, I doubt their website is hosted by Yahoo and as easily added to the dataset.
When I read this in somebody's blog about twelve hours ago, it seemed like this was actually a moderately elaborate prank on Yahoo (there was a website attached to the fictional company at Google address, etc.). It seemed more like somebody had created this fake Website to see whose auto-mapping services would put that fake company at this address.
But maybe I just didn't look very carefully and I'm an idiot?
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Forget about the pranks; it's the new Maps APIs that deserve attention. Not only can you create JavaScript/Ajax maps like with the Google API, but you can also embed Flash maps in your pages or even your own Flash applications. And there's a free geocoder.
Rasmus Lerdorf has a handy tutorial on using this stuff with PHP.
Seriously - why don't they just leave the maps thing alone - the market is saturated - we have, what, google maps, microsoft maps (or whatever they call it), mapquest, map24, mapit, streetmap, maporama, and the list goes on. If they're not bringing *anything* innovative or new to the table, what the £"$£ is the point?!
I worked there are year ago, across the road from google and it's a total dump. One of the reasons I left : Too many ants all over the place.
Yahoo's place in Sunnyvale used to be nice, not been there for a while though.
The only useful thing Google really does is the valet parking for employees, otherwise, the stock is over priced.
I wonder if 4 years from now we'll be referring to a 'google bubble' ?
Yeah, yeah, there goes my positive karma.
... some comedy between rival companies and not flames like Sun vs. Dell I enjoy the busting each others balls in good fun...... but the whole putting them in a vice. Brings back eerie memories of my last girlfriend.
But it's a crying shame those nerds can't even laugh at news of a mildly amusing prank.
It was a joke people. Laugh. For crying out loud...
I just want to say, this prank is hilarious -.-
Where else in Yahoo's new map service are there hidden pranks (a.k.a., bad information) that only the Yahoo insiders know about?
Knowing that people munge the maps makes me feel not so bad. The other day I looked at a map of my house and in the description it said "Loserville. Population: You."
Where's the prank? Is "fish store" a mocking expression?
Signed: not American.
You'd think they could afford a special panther, to take care of the problem.
You know, one that comes with its own soundtrack. Bright pink?
Dead ants! Dead ants! Dead ants dead ants dead ants, dead ants Dead ANNNTS...
I don't think that is it because the contact info on the fish site doesnt list the Google address. It lists another address (where no business is located). If Yahoo had used the data provided by the fish site, as you are suggesting, then it would have placed the business at 1600 Middlefield Rd, Mountain View, CA, no?
IMHO, TFA is correct, this is a prank by a Yahoo employee.
I drove all the way up there hoping to buy some fish!
qntm.org
I think their interface is just much simplier. And like madaxe42 says above, there are already a ton of map services.
KeepTrackOfIt.com - Find the lowest gas prices in your area graphically
as much as the next guy. But YYahoo's maps seem to be implemented better than Google. You can zoom in and out with the mouse whhel, and in Google, Maps w/ Firefox, I invariably, on multiple machines, get vacant squares, and I have to drag the map around this way and that to get the data filled in. Yahoo just works much more smoothly.
Just thought I'd mention that the new Flash virtual machine coming out in a few months time is about 5-10X faster by Macromedia's claims, and these claims have been backed up by users of the public alpha (myself included). The days of Flash killing your CPU cycles may soon be history.
By buying Yahoo! and razing it to the ground.
What a lame prank! now if they had tp's googles hq I would be impressed..
so why link to http://www.stanford.edu/ and http://google.com/ on the links page? and post a gmail account [or should it be googlemail.co.uk over here ...]
How is this a prank? Since when is making your own service unrealiable in terms of the information it provides a "prank"? If I make fun of someone on a website, am I pranking them? A prank is when you make someone look like an idiot at THEIR expense, not the person doing the prank.
blog & fiction: jd87
This might not be a prank.
0 829ta_talk_alford
About 2 weeks ago, news stories were circulating regarding how dictionaries and encyclopedias deliberately insert false entries into their compendiums. They do this to catch obvious theft of their information.
There remains the possibility that GOOGLE themselves or another company that keeps map data has inserted their own false information.
Here's a refresher article on the false entries in dictionaries/encyclopedias: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/05
When microsoft just airbrushed apple off of their satellite maps it may have been an attempt to be funny but it was basically petty.
If yahoo had done this to Google's own maps on the Google site that would have been vandalism not necesarily a prank.
That they went to the trouble of putting up a fake voicemail and other humourous details puts it in the realm of a prank rather than a childish tantrum. Whether you find it funny, that's up to you. There's a thin line between humour and malice, but basically humour is important because it is a legitimate way to air a grievence in a relatively socially acceptable manner.
I don't think this totally undermines Yahoo's credibility. If you needed to get to the Google campus you still could. If you were looking for the Google number, you'd probably Google it anyways.
If anything it actually gives them credibility because it brings them back to the roots of what Yahoo! and the early net was about when it was built in the dorms -- fun.
They just like the fish and are suggesting people go there for lunch...
sreineew era seernigne oohay
These wacky CS people and their abstract names for things. Why can't they be like perl and call them hashes?
Program Intellivision!
Looks like the Dudes also have a website http://ca.local.yahoo.biz/thedudesfishstore
I think there are enoug MIT folks at Google that they felt it necessary to omit any mention of a certain other Cambridge, MA college, though there is a label for its former women's branch, Radcliffe College.
Chunni Babu, stop posting on slashdot you goddamn troll. And don't post as an AC either. You are a tool. Every single one of your posts is a troll against Google. Who do you work for? And then you even include links to your own blog with anti-google stories. Your e-mail is chunidude@yahoo.com , you have a huge bias against Google for some ungodly reason. Get over yourself, Google provides certain services that are better than Yahoo's. Yahoo maps is particularly shitty, if for nothing else then the fact that it forces users to use flash, not even Microsoft did that.
Regards,
Steve
That's a pretty lame prank, actually.
Evan Prodromou | evan@prodromou.name | http://evan.prodromou.name/
Did you guys read at the end of TFA that the screenshots were taken from a Google Cache: Screenshots from Google for a story on Yahoo playing prank on Google.
...
That can also be seen as
Google: I have got your screen shots in my cache now, I will never forget it. Revenge will be mine
Yahoo: nyann nyann nyannn
Does anyone actually use yahoo anymore? I mean seriously I only go to yahoo on accident. I couldn't even tell you what the front page looks like.
Ok, so...pranks are great and all, but...it's important that they actually be FUNNY. "The Dude's Fish Store?" Oh yeah, that's real clever.
"The Dude's Fish Store" at 1600 Amphiteatre Parkway in Mountain View, CA.
Speaking of bad pranks at 1600...
Did anyone else immediately think of Pennsylvania Avenue?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
That's the worst prank I've ever seen. "OMG TaHTS NOT GOGGLE THTAS A FSIH SToRZ!!!!!!!1111!!!ONE!!"
They should have made it a library or a book store, instead of a fish store.
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/ 2165081
Possibly something to do with this ;)