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 Joke About Rosenblatt’s Company, 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.”
HuffPost Irks NYT
In a move sure to irk at least two or three people who work for The New York Times, The Huffington Post has erected a paywall that applies only to NYT employees.
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, including TechCrunch. 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.
XKCD
The great XKCD webcomic is trying to give us a headache, and I think it’s working.
Funny or Die
Last year it was Bieber or Die, when the Thing They Call Bieber decided to buy the site and use it as he pleased. This year, Funny or Die has spawned the Rebecca Black version of the site, which is all Rebecca, all the time. Includes such hits as “Betwixt the Music: Rebecca Black”, “The Top 7 Days We So Excited For”, and “Which Seat Should I Take? W/ Rebecca Black”.
Toshiba
Toshiba, always at the forefront of gadgetry innovation, has announced the world’s first 3D monacle, for all you Monopoly-loving robot guys out there. “Infusing advanced 3D technology into such a small device wasn’t easy. Two triangular polarizing lenses were melded in parallel and encased in black-plated tungsten carbide for a lightweight and durable construction. For comfort, the casing was molded into the shape of an average human eye hole, and draped in bonded leather.” Bonded leather?!? Alright!
Newslite’s Facebook Announcement
Newslite is breaking the news that Facebook will soon be rolling out wedding and baby filters, so that users can turn off the incessant chatter of their friends droning on endlessly about upcoming weddings as well as births and all baby-related content. The social network also expects to soon begin preventing all individuals from uploading pictures of their children to use as their profile images. With these updates rolling out, Facebook expects to hit the 1 billion user mark within weeks.
Google Helvetica
A fan of web-safe, browser-compatible fonts, then whatever you do, don’t type “helvetica” into Google search. No, just kidding. You should do it. See what happens. We dare you. It’s comical. Sans comical.
Qualcomm
Qualcomm recently announced its next mobile processor architecture for the Snapdragon family, Krait. Snapdragon is Qualcomm’s platform for smartphones, tablets, and smartbooks. Qualcomm today announced that it will be sending its employees on a “Way of The Dragon Retreat”. Then there’s something involving Kimodo dragons, it’s hard to say really. I do like Bruce Lee, but I’ll let the video explain.
Thumbs Up
Gadget developer Thumbs Up has a fantastic new product that it will be rolling out worldwide this fall — an iPhone controllable wifi Eagle powered by the Sun. Can you believe it? Simply download the free app and transform your machine into an all seeing remote control roving eye. The “RC Eagle i” will be fully compatible with national wifi networks so you can control your precarious bird of prey from hundreds of miles away. How does it stay aloft? Well, the sun of course. What were you gonna say? A battery? Pssh. Americans must stand and salute as this majestic gadget passes overhead. Unfortunately, though, it’s only available in the U.K., but writing your congressman/woman could change that.
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