Google's death-ray Groggle goggles: drinkle up!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 11 November 2010 14:50

Your IT - Entertainment

One of the weirdest Google stories of the year is it success in garrotting and guillotining Groggle's business name, one which somewhat sounds like Google while playing on the very well-known term 'grog', a synonym for alcohol.

So, what's the new synonym for Groggle?

As you probably already know, it's Drinkle, where users hope to tinkle wine, champagne, beer and shot glasses in celebration of Drinkle's claimed ability to help consumers find the lowest local prices for their favourite drinkies.

Google had to go after Groggle to protect its name and trademark, just as Apple ferociously goes after anyone that has a product with a name containing iPod or something similar to it, because if they don't, they could lose the rights to their name and see even more products trying to rip off a trademarked name than already exist today, especially if they are of the non-licensed variety.

So, Google did whatever it had to do to secure an agreement that Groggle.com would change its name to Drinkle.com, with the entire saga delivering massive loads of PR bubble and froth.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons why Groggle's owners chose the Groggle name in the first place, knowing it would potentially awaken the gargantuan 8,000,000,000,000 pound gorilla that is Google and gift Groggle with galactic levels of publicity goodness.

That way Groggle would win whatever happened. If so, there was clearly no grogginess when Groggle's business plan was built, but it's sadly just speculation.

Whether Groggle has received any cash from Google to divest itself of Groggle and groove on over to the Drinkle domain is unknown: the settlement details are, sadly, confidential.

Although the former Groggle and now Drinkle had planned to launch a working service this year, users will have to wait until early 2011 before being able to put the local, retail, pre-packaged alcohol price comparison website goes live. Sounds like a long time between drinks if you ask me!

All that's there now is a form that lets you sign up to be informed when Drinkle's glass goes form empty to full in terms of a useable service.

It's a shame that Drunkle.com has been taken by those horrible site search spammer people, it would have made a nice addition to the Drinkle empire, dispensing advice on the best way to overcome hangovers, Google 'cease and desist' letters, lawyer's fees and tips on how to mix the best cocktails.

Ah well. All's well that ends well, and with Drinkle.com's existence assured for now, all the Drinkle people have to do is deliver a working service, and when they do, plenty of people will happily drink to that!