Google April fools for 2008
Posted by multippt
Looks like April Fools went silently this year, but not without it being forgotten. Google went 14 steps further this April fools, this time with 16 April fools hoaxes, compared to the two earlier last year. Sounds like Google is pretty busy preparing for its favorite day.
1# Virgle - Google aims to built a permanent human settlement on Mars with the Virgin group. Comes complete with invitations and applications as well.
2# AdSense Blog - Looks like Google considered the literal meaning of contextual ads, going as far as to adding AdSense to your normal conversations. The link to the blog entry is here. Clicking on the supposed sign-up link takes you to a Wikipedian entry on April’s fools (wow, looks like even Google acknowledges Wikipedia). Of course, it would be really nice if Google could actually implement that.
3# Orkut - Orkut’s name was changed to “Yogurt” for the day. Well, at least they still sound similar.
4# Google Japan - Google launches the site with the mission of “organizing the world’s laughter”. (Japan exclusive)
5# gDay - Google announces (in Australia) that they have developed technology that can search for pages hours before they are created. (Australia exclusive)
6# Google Translator - A new feature to translate different dialects of Korean. (Korea exclusive)
7# Google custom time - A new feature in GMail that allows you to send E-mails to the past.
8# Google calendar - Google decided to bring “I’m feeling lucky” to Google calendar, except that clicking on that button will not bring you to the first page of the results, but rather adds a nice event that sets you up with a date with some famous/popular people.
9# Google summer of code - The license were changed to WTF Public License temporarily for the day.
10# Google wake up kit - Adds a feature to the Google calendar that does the classics of waking up people using unorthodox/extreme methods.
11# Google documents - A new easter egg was added in the file menu (called “New Airplane”). Clicking on it literally opens up a document containing instructions to fold a paper airplane, complete with the Google logo.
12# Google manpower search (China) - Uses search results powered by human labour. Of course, it would have been the best search engine all-time if that were true and feasible. (China exclusive)
13# Google book search - Adds a new section called “scratch and sniff”. Basically the idea is to click on a button and “smell” the book (by placing your nose close to the monitor).
14# Blogger - Blogger featured an announcement on Google Weblogs which is touted as the next revolution in personal publishing (or simply, blogging). This new “Blogger 3.0″ places your best content at the top, rather than the latest posts. In addition, it supposingly populates your sidebar with relevant content (technically, this is already done - it’s called ads).
15# Google Talk - Google annouces that it plans to shorten conversations (by omitting certain vowels and letters) on the 22nd of April (i.e. Earth Day). Kind of nice to think that Google brought up Earth Day on April Fools.
16# Youtube - This is the first time Youtube gets a nice April Fools addition. All links linking to featured videos point to Rick Astley’s song. In other words, anyone using Youtube on April Fool’s will get RickRolled - by Google. That’s neat. At least Google is paying attention to Internet memes. (United Kingdom [UK] and Australia Youtube sites initially affected [Google must have been following the time-zone], followed by the remainder.)
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P.S.: Never believe anything you read on April Fools. Even newspapers lie…
P.S. #2: April Fools is yesterday, so this post ain’t an April Fools joke.
