Yes, folks, that’s right. That special, special time of year is upon us. It’s April Fools 2011! We take April Fools pretty seriously around here, so we’ll be constantly updating this post with the best April Fools jokes and pranks the World Wide Interwebernets has to offer. All night and all day. As long as it takes. If you find a gem, please share it with us in the comments. Thank you in advance. So, without further ado, here is Aol HuffingtonCrunch’s big list of April Tomfoolery:
The April Foolings
An Airline Finally Offers Child-Free Flights
Ryanair beats most to the punch with an announcement that the Irish airline will be offering child-free flights beginning in October. “When it comes to children we all love our own but would clearly prefer to avoid other people’s little monsters when travelling. While half our passengers would like us to divide our cabins up into ‘adult’ and ‘family’ areas it is not operationally possible due to our free seating policy, with optional priority boarding”, said Head of Communications Stephen McNamara.
Google Places Filed As Spam
TechCrunch reports that the internal war at Google continues, as Google Places is officially filed under “spam”, and removed from Google search. Google Chief Revenue Officer Nikesh Arora was even spotted on Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt’s yacht, Adsense. Marissa Mayer was even quotes as saying, “Screw the webspam team”, and “It’s not like people are going to start using Bing”.
You Can Take Rosenblatt’s Life, But Not His Yacht
TechCrunch reports that Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt was none-too-happy about Mike revealing details about his yacht, Adsense. Maybe if he had enough sense not to call it Adsense…
Spotify Kills European Service To Go American
TechCrunch’s Paul Carr reports that everybody-not-living-in-America’s favourite music service, Spotify, is officially ceasing all international operations in an effort to fund the company’s American infiltration. That’ll teach ‘em. Sean Parker, one of the company’s first US investors, told TechCrunch, “Europe isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? America.”
Atlassian Launches Angry Nerds
Atlassian is launching its own take on hit Angry Birds….Angry Nerds. “What do you do when you have bugs in your code? Send in the Angry Nerds. Consider these issues…resolved.”
ThredUP Launches Clothing Swap For…Dad
Kids clothes and toys swap site thredUP will now be catering to dads with the launch of a paternity clothing swap. Previously the site had been focused exclusively on moms and kids, but is not moving into the Dads market.
Deals4Hipsters
A Groupon Clone, Deals For Hipsters launched as a daily deals site for the quintessential hipster. According to the site, “Nothing is more important to us than taking your money and spending it on material goods of our own. If you ever feel like Deals 4 Hipsters let you down, give us a call and we’ll think about sending you a nice thanks for trying card – simple as that.”
YouTube Travels Back In Time
Following on its memorable April 1st pranks like, Rick Rolling its entire user base, for example, YouTube will be reverting its videos back to what it would have looked like around 1911, complete with grainy, sepia video footage, no audio tracks (save for piano accompaniment), and title cards in place of the site’s normal comments.
Joel On Software Gets Pwned
Software developer Joel Spolsky rants about everything from software to other kinds of software on his blog, Joel On Software. This hilarious parody site, Joel On Coal, was created for April Fool’s Day.
Google Autocompleter
Google begins its April Fools celebration with this job posting for an “autocompleter”. “Every day people start typing more than a billion searches on Google and expect Google to predict what they are looking for. In order to do this at scale, we need your help … As a Google Autocompleter, you’ll be expected to successfully guess a user’s intention as he or she starts typing instantly. In a fraction of a second, you’ll need to type in your prediction that will be added to the list of suggestions given by Google. Don’t worry, after a few million predictions you’ll grow the required reflexes.”
Gmail Motion
Google introduces Gmail Motion, which allows you to control Gmail with your body. Finally.
Groupon Now Owns April Fools Day
The uncertainty over April Fools Day’s intellectual trademark led Groupon to purchase the rights to everybody’s favorite joke day. You can read Groupon’s patent application here. Groupon has also issued cease and desist letters to all the major violators of its trademark. Watch out, you could be next.
LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” contact recommendation engine has gotten a little cheeky on this Fools’ Day of April. LinkedIn has begun recommending people that clearly wouldn’t want to become my professional contacts. Though, Albert, if you’re reading this, feel free to peruse my resume. Some great examples of relativity.
uTest Launches Dating For Software Testers
uTest, a marketplace for software testing services, announced today that they will be launching a dating site, QAdate, for software testers. Even software testers gotta find love, man. Software pimpin’ ain’t easy.
Starbucks
Thank God Starbucks is finally putting its baristas on scooters, as the coffee giant today launches its “Mobile Pour” feature. Watch out, Zaarly. “We’ve even made ordering easy with our Mobile Pour app for your smartphone. Simply download it, allow it to pinpoint your location, select your coffee order and keep walking. Your fresh, hot Starbucks brew will be in your hands before you can say abra-arabica.” Abra-arabica! /gets coffee thrown in face
Google AdWords
This just in from Google AdWords: It seems that many newcomers to display advertising feel that they missed out on the glory days of advertising in the 2000s. So, Google is offering an opportunity to make up for lost time with old school ads in Display Ad Builder. Options include: “Punch the Monkey”, “Click here for smileys”, “LOLcat”, “Dancing .gif”, “Pop ups galore”, and “Scratch off”.
SoundCloud
Music distribution platform SoundCloud today announced it will be adding a righteous new feature that will allow you to customize your profile with some amazing background animations. Because, you see, it’s all about self-expression. You have to express yourself, and there’s no better way to do that than with SoundCloud’s killer new background customization features. Just try not to have a seizure.
Hulu
Hulu seems to have taken a page from YouTube’s April Fools Day Manual, bringing us back in time to when video killed the radio star — except in Hulu’s case we are transported to a time when modems were dial-up, hyperlinks were underlined, and images were grainy. I believe they called it “the mid-to-late nineties”. Whenever that was. All I remember is the bursting of some sort of bubble. Memory goes blank after that.
A Few From The Vault
Google Goes Nuclear
TechCrunch reports that, as part of its effort to become more green (and to protect itself from outside threats), Google was stepping into nuclear power.
Facebook & Zynga
Jason Kincaid reports that Zynga and Facebook have teamed up to light a fire under digital dating by bringing gaming into the mix. Facebook will be offering a section of the site dedicated to helping users meet potential romantic partner, which will be filled with games designed to “synthesize romance and foster relationships through social gaming mechanics”. No better way to get to know a potential mate than by using Farmville to break the ice.
Virgle
Google’s partnership with Virgin, Project Virgle, is one of the more clever April Fools day pranks in recent memory. Sergey, Larry, and Richard Branson announced plans to lead the human population in its colonization of Mars in an “Adventure of Many Lifetimes”. Check out the FAQ.
Spaghetti Trees
Ah, the classic Spaghetti tree hoax of 1957, when the BBC ran a 3-minute short, which told the tale of a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the elusive spaghetti tree. If only spaghetti grew on trees. Or iPads.
Pranks are all over the internet these days.
