April 1 is generally associated with hoaxes, false news, pranks, tomfoolery and (un)noteworthy nonsense. Over the years social media and tech news sites have capitalised on the April Fool’s day trend by posting grandiose announcements covering advancements in technology, changes to existing social platforms or adding new game-changing functionality to existing applications.
This year has been no exception with several large corporations driving the April Fool’s buzz. Even Memeburn.com cashed in on the hype with our pay-for-tweets story. Here’s a roundup of our favourite seven pranks. Did you get fooled?
Google: Gmail Motion & results page for ‘helvitica’ search
The folks at google have been super busy with two noteworthy pranks. Gmail Motion: the revolutionary software which allows you to manage your email with motion gestures and the helvitica search: type helvitica into the Google searchbar and the results page renders the text in the Comic Sans font. The prank is aimed at web designers, obviously playing off against the current helvitica font hype, a popular sans serif font that is all the rage these days and the much despised Comic Sans font which has been tagged as the most-hated font in the world.
Reddit gives you mold.
Yes, as in multicellular hyphae filaments of fungus spores mold. Social media news site Reddit added a new feature which is almost as good as the real Reddit, but with a few disadvantages. Comments limits go down by 10 every time somebody gives you mold so that if you get mold 50 times, you no longer see any comments. Reddit have also ommited the letter ‘e’ from the comments interface and you have access to an exclusive, members-only secret lounge.
Klout for text messaging
Social media analytics experts Klout, announced a ‘ deal with all major carriers to access 90% of text messages throughout the continental United States.’ Klout will then implement it’s algorithms to analyze your text messaging influence and add to your overall Klout Score, Network Score, True Reach, and topics.
Groupon patents “April Fools”
E-commerce corporation Groupon cashed in on the April Fools hype by acquiring a patent application for the phrase: “April Fools.” In their newest aquisition, the billion dollar company is citing intellectual trademark ownership of the term and have even included a hilariously designed PDF patent application.
Confused.com launches new ‘thumb’ insurance for social media addicts
Online price comparison site Confused.com has introduced thumb insurance for social media addicts. The first of its kind from any UK insurer, the policy covers your thumbs in the event of strain, injury or maimed by any unruly tweets and offers a free emergency kit including Savlon cream and fast healing plasters.
Firefox “Do Not Fool” add-on
Tired of all the April Fool pranks and eager to cut the jokes and get back to some serious news? Now, you can, with Mozilla Firefox’s DNF (Do Not Fool) add-on will let you set the browser to opt-out of April Fools jokes by sending a Do Not Fool HTTP header with every click or page view in Firefox.
YouTube vintage
YouTube went retro to honor April Fools, by offering users a glimpse of what a 1911 version of the site would have been.With 1911 logos on all YouTube videos, the popular video site offered users an option to click on an icon next to each video, transforming it into a silent, vintage, motion picture, complete with grainy yellow screen and piano music:
