Google’s reign of terror is over! Well, not quite: the pre-eminent search engine isn’t going to go the way of AskJeeves and AltaVista, the company is simply rebranding itself with a new holding company called Alphabet, whose largest and wholly owned subsidiary will be... Google.
but seriously is Google still Google or what
— Elena Cresci (@elenacresci) August 10, 2015
Desperately googling Alphabet? No need. Let Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founders, explain: “We liked Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important inventions, and is the core of how we index with Google search.”
As well as being “one of” humanity’s most important inventions, Alphabet is also a really great name for a sinister uber-corporation in a dystopian sci-fi novel, which I’m sure they considered too.
One person who is understandably delighted by the new announcement is Daniel Negari, the CEO of XYZ.com, an internet domain registry company that owns a range of suffices including .college. His latest client? The new parent company of Google, which can be found at abc.xyz. Daniel reacted with the appropriate gravitas:
— DanielNegari (@DanielNegari) August 10, 2015
If you’re Microsoft, you can at least reassure yourself that you now also have a funky new URL.
To give Google credit where credit is due, they did at least manage to mock the megalomaniacal nature of their own announcement, throwing in a link to Hooli.xyz, clearly a reference to the Google-esque Hooli from HBO’s Silicon Valley.
Google buried an awesome Easter egg deep in its Alphabet announcement http://t.co/JDqBkrIpl6 pic.twitter.com/FIK1EjjpA6
— Mashable (@mashable) August 10, 2015
One must, though, spare a thought for the owner of twitter.com/alphabet, who must have been having an interesting 24 hours.
Well, that was an interesting way to end a Monday...
— Chris Andrikanich (@alphabet) August 10, 2015
The internet has been reacting with confusion, horror and mockery to the announcement, as you would expect. One user managed to explain the complex ownership structure of the Alphabet/Google nexus in Simpsonian terms:
#Alphabet in one word. pic.twitter.com/Njj4RwSvUY
— Patasho (@Patasho) August 10, 2015
While another was drawn to compare it with another corporation with big plans for the future:
#Alphabet is actually a subsidiary of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. pic.twitter.com/VEozArwdfl
— Diane N. Sevenay (@Diane_7A) August 10, 2015
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that Google have also announced a radical shake-up to their corporate management structure, handing control of its core search engine business to Sundar Pichai, pictured below.
#Alphabet's new CFO: pic.twitter.com/cmXCk8f9sL
— TrivWorks (@TrivWorks) August 10, 2015
