April Fools 2011: Pranks Around The Web

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Top April Fools 2011 Pranks Online

Google – Motion gaming has become extremely popular over the past few years with the Wii, Move, and Kinect. Now Google wants to make Gmail motion controlled, thus launching Gmail Motion. No keyboard or mouse needed, hand and body gestures will control everything for you. All of this is detailed on the custom site Google launched for April Fools day. The motion functionality even looks to extend to Google docs, for which Google also created a custom site experience. Another Google prank you will notice when typing in a search today is a job open for autocompleters, and you only need to type 32,000 words per minute to apply.

YouTube - In honor of April Fools, YouTube decided to go retro and give users a feel for what it would have been like for the business in 1911. They even have 1911 logos on all YouTube videos, and when you click it, the video will transform into a vintage, silent, motion picture. Everything will turn to a dirty and grainy yellow accompanied by old-school piano music, looking something like a Charlie Chaplin film.

ThinkGeek – A couple changes popped up on ThinkGeek today, with one being an X over the M in the word masses of their slogan: “stuff for smart masses.” Additionally they have a variety of new products that look to be fake, which is their traditional technique, however in years past some of these prank products have become the real deal. This year some of the fake products include an Apple Store playset, Angry Birds Pork Rinds, Star Wars Light Saber Popsicles, The Original Shirt Plate, and a USB Desktop Nether Portal.

CollegeHumor – When you arrive at the site it appears as if you are logged into their web admin as Intern22, and when you click the admin access it goes into what looks like a fully functional admin panel. However the joke is on you as it does not work, and when you go back to the homepage the folks at CollegeHumor.com confirm that you have been tricked by their April Fools 2011 prank.

GrooveShark – My favorite online music site looks a bit different today, as they decided to harness the power of HTML 5 to bring their users 3DS+. This new technology allows listeners to experience music in the third dimension. They have a link to their blog where you can print out the ridiculous accessories to help you hear the 3DS+ experience.

Mozilla (Firefox) – Many of you reading this may be using Mozilla Firefox, and if you do not want to deal with April Fools pranks online for the rest of the day, then you can get an add-on to fix that. The DNF (Do Not Fool) add-on will let you set the browser to opt-out of April Fools jokes, via a Do Not Fool HTTP header with every click or page view in Firefox.

FunnyorDie – Last year Justin Bieber took over, and now it looks like the recent web fame of Rebecca Black and her song Friday are taking over, with the site renamed FridayorDie. Since many view this as one of the worst songs ever, it is not surprising that FunnyorDie took a stab at it for April Fools. The entire site is now plastered with everything Rebecca Black, so it looks like her 15 minutes of fame will continue a bit longer.

Groupon – When you are a multi-billion dollar company, you better go big for April Fools. Groupon has been raising money and acquiring companies for the last year, and now they have a patent application for the phrase: “April Fools.” They even designed a full PDF patent application where you can see all the funny details.

Reddit – Over the last year Reddit has become increasingly popular, and is now a major part of the Conde Nast business. Reddit, not to be outdone this year for April Fools, decided to launch Reddit Mold, which seems to be almost as good as the real Reddit, but with a few disadvantages. Comments limits go from 500 to 490, but you get access to a secret members-only lounge. Apparently things can get worse, if more people give you Reddit Mold, so be careful.

ZippyCart will be updating this post throughout the day with any new and exciting April Fools’ Day pranks of 2011. Keep your eyes peeled and while you wait, checkout ZippyCart.com for more...

Social Media Addicts Association Meeting

Flutter: The New Twitter

This "mock-umentary" is hilarious... it's so funny, I had to add it here so I can watch it over and over again. I think I would even wear those glasses they're talkin' about. I'm thinkin' that limiting messages to just 26 characters might actually be the answer to our problems with Global Warming? Think about all the energy it would save by not using the extra 114 characters for all those messages.

Really well done :-)

Did he just say, "Flux Capacitor"?

Posted by email from ptamaro's posterous

Office Jargon v3.1

I'm trying to make time to read blogs again. Here's a recent post from Lyndonology that really made me actually LOL, and got me thinking about how great it is to be "working in the interactive Web 2.0 space" these days. His post is a derivative from BBC News Magazine's Article, 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate.

I've heard a bunch of the office phrases he lists in the post, but I haven't heard all of them before... there's a few really juicy ones in there. These days, I try use phrases like this in meetings and stuff just to see if I can get others to use them, and because they're generally empty phrases that lack any real useful substance. It's kinda fun in a twisted sort of way. Give it a try, just make sure you use these phrases with conviction, and never ever back-down or break into laughter if you're pressed into a situation where you'll need to actually explain what you mean. Just think quickly and make up another one, look at your watch and let that person know you have a meeting to get to!

Perk up those dull meetings
I used to work with a guy (he's hilarious) who made the greatest sounding "tech phrases" up and then use 'em in meetings to see how long it took to have his own phony phrases come back to him. It's just great to hear a CEO talk about the "creamy goodness" of a "web product's UI" or functionality.

In the beginning...
What about the early days? Remember when people used to want to make their web sites "sticky"? Kinda like fly paper, or maybe something you might find in a public restroom stall? Yeah, right... great. That'll make me want to bookmark you. I'm not sure you're "grokking it" though.¹ And here's a great old-style umbrella phrase that was used to describe everything but your microwave oven, "multimedia" ...it still has a certain zest to it, doesn't it?

Here's a recent one I've been hearing more frequently: "socialize". This one is really kinda growing on me — it's so upbeat and snappy! Doesn't it sound just groovy? Like we might get to dance or have drinks, and possibly even snuggle-up?

I think these phrases are great if you're just getting into the "high tech industry" or have a tough time putting several consecutive substantive and meaningful sentences together. They're great for making that flashy first impression too. They're also great to whip out in interviews, parties and even holiday get-togethers with old friends or your extended family. Go ahead, give them a whirl. Cousin Jed will think you're a real "rocket surgeon" who works on that "internet thing." Folks will think you're, "on the ball."

Here are a few more gems coupled with the reason(s) I find them interesting:

• Ah, let's revisit that again later"
  
  No, let's have a visit with it right now -- isn't that the reason we're having this forever-long meeting in the first place?



• [insert product or website name here] is getting a lot of buzz lately
  
  Dude, we're in a boardroom, you can't smoke that in here!



• Can you take that offline?
  
  We're in the parking lot, so technically we're not really "online" per se. Which leads me to this one...



• Technically speaking, blah, blah, blah...
  
  This one's very popular with engineers, folks who your frinds jobs have been outsourced to, and consultants.



• Let's continue to press on
  
  Very lively and invigorating! Um, yeah that's gonna make me type faster.

...and here's a few I hope to start circulating soon: "Yeah, I'm clickin' it..." or "ok you've got my bookmark" but maybe they need a little more post-processing?

:-|