Mountain View, Calif. — April 1, 2008 — Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has announced, after weeks of negotiations, its acquisition of Howdypedia™, a niche wiki devoted to the massively multiplayer online game Bang! Howdy™. In a press release, Google CEO Eric Schmidt laid out his vision for the future.

Here at Google, we make expansion into new markets a top priority. So when we heard that Howdypedia was not only the top-rated Bang! Howdy encyclopedia on the Web, but had cornered the industry for nearly two years, we immediately started the takeover process. We engaged briefly in dialog with Howdypedia Co-Founder and Executive Director Benjamin Lees, but he became much more receptive to our offers once reports surfaced of searches he had made containing keywords like 'bang howdy cheats' and 'gunslinger naked.' It took a little while to work out the details, but I feel that we reached a fair deal.

We feel that one of Howdypedia's greatest strengths is its image. We have decided to harness this by releasing new Howdypedia-brand products, including: Hmail™, the innovative new mail service that blocks spam through reverse engineering; Howdypedia Earth™, a next-generation satellite mapping service that contains detailed maps of Boom Town; iHowdypedia™, a customized homepage service that includes an RSS feed of Bang! Howdy releases (it will definitely have activity soon); Howdypedia Scholar™, a comprehensive database with articles by 12 centuries of experts in fields such as Bang! Howdy finance, Bang! Howdy strategic management, and Bang! Howdy interpretive dance; and Howdypedia Alerts™, which provides advance notice of weekly Howdypedia downtimes.

We are aware that there has been some concern among the Howdypedia staff with regard to leaked reports of this acquisition; I want to personally assure all interested parties that we have no intention of taking the wiki "official" in any way. We welcome Howdypedia into the Google Family™ as an equal but independent member. There will be some restructuring, however: Howdypedia's IRC channel will be renamed Howdypedia Talk™, and will be run solely on geothermal energy; Mr. Lees will be relocating to our Boston office as Google's Chief Bang! Howdy Affairs Consultant, but will remain part of the Howdypedia project as Chairman Emeritus of the newly-formed Howdypedia Board of Trustees; Howdypedia's Chief Artistic Director, Jeff Carey, will be joining Google's logo-drawing team; Chief Engineering Specialist Bruno Garcia will be relocating to California for some other company; and Head Groundskeeper Mathew Kim will head up the new Google CleanCrew™ janitorial service.

We at Google would finally like to extend our deepest regards to Three Rings Design for not acquiring Howdypedia earlier, and to remind Three Rings that they had their chance.

Happy Spring!