April Fools’ Day on the Web

Every year on April 1, a few of us are taken by surprise as we sometimes forget that it’s April Fools’ Day. From prank phone calls to faux Facebook statuses, telling fibs from reality can be extremely difficult on this day.  It only took about 30 minutes before editors of Forbes.com had to take down Len Burman’s blog piece, “Romney drops out of Race, endorses Santorum” because so many people had believed the story to be true instead of reading it as an intended political satire.  We’ve gathered our favorite internet pranks of 2012 below: 

xkcd: Umwelt

Best and most thought-out April Fools’ joke this year goes to xkcd.  Go onto their website and you’ll see their daily comic on the homepage. When you hover your cursor over the image, you’ll see the following message: “Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds.” This message is a clue to their April Fools’ prank.  xkcd used your referrer, geographic location, browser, ISP and OS to determine which comic you were directed to.  The one shown above is the comic you would have seen if you were located in the Harvard and MIT area.

If you’re from the bay area, you would have seen this. Other fun location-based comics include: Canada, Michigan, Germany, the UK, and Google Corporate.  

If Chrome is your web browser, you may have seen image 1, 2, or 3. 

If you were referred by Wikipedia: http://i.imgur.com/uNviC.jpg Twitter: http://i.imgur.com/F6ysB.jpg  or Facebook: http://i.imgur.com/1xrzc.png 

Even if you expanded your browser, you would have seen a different comic. 

Google Maps in 8-Bit

Go to Google maps and click on “Quest” in the top right hand corner to turn your map into 8-bit and relive the glory days of NES.  Google had a series of great April Fools’ Day related pranks such as the Multi-task app that allows you to use multiple cursors for optimum productivity and Google’s Really Advanced Search that allows you to narrow your search results to the subtext or innuendo of a word. Google even released a series of hilarious videos such as the Google Fiber Bar, Google and NASCAR unveil Google Racing, and Gmail Tap: Morse code for your phone. 

 
Conan Buys Mashable
 
Watch out Mashable, you’re “out of touch. ALL HAIL YOUR NEW CEO”—at least, that’s what Conan O’Brien claimed on his Twitter on Sunday.  Just after midnight EST on April 1, Conan O’Brien announced that he had “ousted” Pete Cashmore and bought out Mashable.com for $3,500.  The next day, Conan released a video of his “resignation.” But maybe his vision of the “manual tweet” will live on. 

Kodak: Print Your Own Live Kittens

Kodak’s homepage on April 1, featured their new service where you could “select a breed…wait 90 seconds…and fall in love” with the kitten of your choice.