Google Transit Sends Upset User Superman Cape

Apr 30, 2007 at 10:38am ET by Barry Schwartz

Adam Darowski blogged about getting some really bad advice from Google Transit, specifically asking him to “cross an eight-lane highway on foot.” So how did Google respond?

Joe Hughes of Google Transit sent Adam a Superman cape and a letter apologizing for the inconvenience. Here is the letter:

Dear Superman,

Reading your blog post about Google Transit at SXSW made us wonder if you were losing your powers—I mean, how hard could it be to leap over a simple 8-lane highway intersection, man of steel? We’ve enclosed a new cape—hopefully it will help you find your powers again.

…seriously, though, Adam, we’re sorry that Google Transit sent you on such an expedition, and we wanted to let you know that we’ve since improved our routing, so that it returns more plausible walking sections at the start & end of transit routes.

Cheers, Joe Hughes Google Transit

Now that is funny!

Google is known for doing things like this. In the past, Adam Lasnik from the Google Web Search team sent acetaminophen for the headaches AdWords were causing one advertiser. Adam also sent a pen to Ask.com after they made a funny blog post about their Google pen running out of ink.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

See more articles by Barry Schwartz >

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