Oh Google, you foolers
April 1, 2011 1:36 AM   Subscribe

Gmail Motion by Google. Gmail for the Knect generation.
posted by 00dimitri00 (59 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I thought the story about Microsoft complaining to the EU about anti-competitive practices was the best April Fools story, but it turns out that one is true. Who would have believed it???
posted by bap98189 at 1:45 AM on April 1, 2011


TO BARBADOS!

so intuitive....
posted by molecicco at 1:51 AM on April 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


Just so you know, this thread will auto-destruct for those in the GMT timezones at 12pm.
posted by mippy at 1:52 AM on April 1, 2011


See also Hulu 1996 and the annual Thinkgeek products, the Minecraft store, and the google search for "helvetica".
posted by NoraReed at 1:52 AM on April 1, 2011 [14 favorites]


Also Youtube 1911.
posted by bap98189 at 2:04 AM on April 1, 2011 [8 favorites]




The google search for "helvetica" is pretty funny.
posted by klausness at 2:24 AM on April 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


I thought Flickr's was cute.
posted by Jofus at 2:38 AM on April 1, 2011


An interesting sale from American Apparel...
posted by robself at 2:43 AM on April 1, 2011


The google search for "helvetica" is pretty funny.

I must be psychic, 'cause that's exactly what I thought it would do.
posted by JHarris at 2:44 AM on April 1, 2011


Also Youtube 1911.

Play him off, Flugelhorn Feline!
posted by JHarris at 2:48 AM on April 1, 2011 [5 favorites]


I get the impression that ThinkGeek's April Fools products have had so many "please make this for real!!" requests in the past that they are now specifically aiming for April Fools products that are actually pretty easy to actually make, so they can do this more often and turn it into a publicity thing.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:56 AM on April 1, 2011 [5 favorites]


I mean, lightsabre popsicles? That's better Star Wars merchandise than about 65% of existing, real-life Star Wars merchandise.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:00 AM on April 1, 2011 [9 favorites]


The Guardian's effort seems to be a somewhat amusing Royal Wedding Live Blog (29 days early).

10.06am: Time for a quick round-up of royal headlines around the web:

• In a surprising change of editorial tone, the Daily Mail seems to be turning against the royal wedding: in a double-page spread it decries "The hell this wedding will cause for London motorists". Richard Littlejohn, meanwhile, worries that "in today's loony PC Britain", there is no way to be certain that gay people will not be present among the celebrating crowds.

posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:08 AM on April 1, 2011 [9 favorites]


Google Romance
posted by relooreloo at 4:01 AM on April 1, 2011 [3 favorites]


We're constantly working to improve the quality of your Contextual Dating results. If you encounter inaccurate, disappointing or otherwise cosmically unfair romantic results that you'd like to bring to our attention, please submit a report here.
posted by Elmore at 4:07 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Even better than Helvetica.
posted by mahershalal at 4:15 AM on April 1, 2011




The Guardian one is a tour de force.
Are you at Legoland? Send us your pictures of the damage.
posted by Flashman at 4:36 AM on April 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


Jack of Kent: Why "skepticism" is now just another cult.
posted by ceiriog at 4:51 AM on April 1, 2011


I'm sorry, I'm totally a googleFanBoi but this is shark jumping at its finest. Boo.
posted by sammyo at 5:05 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


I've been documenting my favourite AFD tricks on twitter, but for you mefites, they're

- Apple OSX to look more like Apple iOS
- Google to Change Android from Open to Closed Source.
- Music Companies suing Amazon for online storage of music files.

Unbelievable and hilarious stuff, I think you'll agree.
posted by seanyboy at 5:05 AM on April 1, 2011 [8 favorites]




thanks seanyboy, you must be really fun at parties.
posted by Mach5 at 5:14 AM on April 1, 2011 [5 favorites]


But... I am really fun at parties.

(sadface)
posted by seanyboy at 5:27 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


It can be very difficult to tell which bullshit is real and which bullshit is bullshit.
posted by Elmore at 5:34 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


A few Aussie music sites - including mine - ran a story about a Rebecca Black tour of shopping malls. Pretty low-key.

I would buy lightsabre Popsicles.

Google Motion seems inevitable.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:54 AM on April 1, 2011


as for Minecraft merch, real stuff is out there. Saw a guy wearing a Minecraft shirt today. Said 'Miners Union' or something
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:56 AM on April 1, 2011


Ok, yeah so it is a joke. I forgot it was April fool's day but something about the way it was shot gave it away as a parody. That's a relief.
posted by Liquidwolf at 6:00 AM on April 1, 2011


Jack of Kent: Why "skepticism" is now just another cult.

Gulp! I've actually had (sincere) thoughts that hover in the neighborhood of this.

/back to the fun

The Google Motion video killed it with the guy they got to demonstrate the motions - totally deadpan, utterly formalized.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:03 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Well I had our sysadmin send out an e-mail informing everyone that we will be moving to Google Motion on May 4th. So far, no one has got the joke and we've had 2 people complaining that they absolutely need Outlook and hate gmail. Luckily we've managed to scrounge up 5 boxed webcams from some conference, so it looks like we're prepared for this.

Unfortunately when we handed them the webcams we got a, "What is this?" and it is apparent that they haven't even looked at the e-mails, and we're just getting preemptive complaining. April fools leading to some existential depression.
posted by geoff. at 6:53 AM on April 1, 2011 [21 favorites]


Fanny scratching... sex workers... labia minor... Wikipedia's not-fake-but-fake-sounding articles are decidedly dirty this year!
posted by molecicco at 6:55 AM on April 1, 2011


Perhaps not surprisingly, early adopters of Gmail Motion seem to be predominantly airline flight attendants.
posted by Kabanos at 7:02 AM on April 1, 2011 [4 favorites]


><>
posted by ardgedee at 7:18 AM on April 1, 2011


A few Aussie music sites - including mine - ran a story about a Rebecca Black tour of shopping malls. Pretty low-key.

Isn't that real though? I've been hearing about that on local radio stations for the past week.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:25 AM on April 1, 2011


Lovecraft In Brooklyn wrote: "A few Aussie music sites - including mine - ran a story about a Rebecca Black tour of shopping malls. Pretty low-key"

Is she touring with Hanson, or what?
posted by wierdo at 7:29 AM on April 1, 2011


Hulu 1996 gave me a good solid laugh. Particularly a visitor counter in the double digits with fourteen zeros in front.

It's hard to believe that fifteen years ago, we were making pages that looked (often at best) like that.
posted by quin at 7:35 AM on April 1, 2011


Hulu 1996 consistency fail. when you click to watch any of the videos from 1996, the top part is in 2011 layout, or however you say that in I-can-properly-describe-web-layout-speak (from either era!).
posted by Sweetdefenestration at 8:14 AM on April 1, 2011


Also from google:
Comic Sans for everyone!
Old School Ads
Translate for animals

They really went all out this year!
posted by jouir at 8:15 AM on April 1, 2011


Yay! Metafilter can feel superior because we made the change everything to comic sans joke first!

Go us!
posted by The Devil Tesla at 8:20 AM on April 1, 2011


youtube and hulu were great! I guess the throwback theme really works.

So clearly that was the 1911 bed intruder, but I didn't recognize all the other videos on youtube's "top 5 of 1911" gag. Were they all direct parodies?
posted by milestogo at 8:46 AM on April 1, 2011


Awwww the Google trick doesn't work for Papyrus.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 8:51 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Toshiba 3D monocle.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 8:54 AM on April 1, 2011


For metalulz, check out how Hulu implemented the blink tag.
posted by stet at 9:02 AM on April 1, 2011


Blizzard made the same joke. They said they'd redo StarCraft in a Kinect-style control scheme. I thought it was funnier, particularly because it does seem like something a game dev team might actually do. Probably not one at Blizzard, but I could see a team working on a RTS being told by an executive to "do something with Kinect."
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:14 AM on April 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


I'm outside the US - can you watch these videos, and if so, are they all blocky and grainy?
posted by mippy at 9:52 AM on April 1, 2011


Evelyn Bates reviewed this video.

1996
This was awesome! I was 6 in 1996 lol
posted by mippy at 9:54 AM on April 1, 2011


I'm keep muting the conversation while trying to water my plants.
posted by analogue at 10:06 AM on April 1, 2011


One for us chess nerds: chessgames.com game of the day
posted by strangememes at 10:13 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


I really have to love the Hulu 1996 modem noise. That sound makes me feel so warm and fuzzy that I wish that more sites used it as the "waiting for load" screen because it triggers a feeling that makes me feel like something is actually happening.

Also, Hulu 1996 showed me that they have Murder One -- which, along with the Doctor Who TV movie is the only new program I think I made the point of watching during that year. I've often wondered it how it would hold up now that "season long continuing storylines" are a lot more normal to me. Now I get to find out. (If it had been a joke on the other end of the link, I would have been so pissed.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:59 AM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


I didn't recognize all the other videos on youtube's "top 5 of 1911" gag. Were they all direct parodies?

Buggy Intruder = Bed Intruder
Flugelhorn Feline = Keyboard Cat
Irksome Citrus = Annoying Orange
Horse and Buggy Crash = Rick Roll
Swing Flummox = Fail Blog
posted by wildcrdj at 12:00 PM on April 1, 2011


Work at Google!
posted by me & my monkey at 12:01 PM on April 1, 2011


Enter the Konami code on the DOC website.
posted by Vibrissa at 12:11 PM on April 1, 2011 [1 favorite]




Isn't that real though? I've been hearing about that on local radio stations for the past week.

nah one site ran it as a joke, than other sites like ours picked it up
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:45 PM on April 3, 2011


WestJet
posted by juiceCake at 10:10 AM on April 4, 2011


Oh, man. Confession time: I've been on a cruise over Spring Break, where we had no internet (we COULD have, if we had wanted to pay $6.99 a minute. No, I am not kidding).

So, anyway, when I came back, I had lots of email to sort through from the past week, and I was going through the messages and ran across one from ThinkGeek.

You can see where this is going, right? I tried to order the Angry Birds green pork rinds.

Can't believe I fell for it.

I still want them. My son has us all addicted to that game and his birthday is coming up this month.
posted by misha at 10:20 AM on April 4, 2011


MCMikeNamara wrote: "Also, Hulu 1996 showed me that they have Murder One -- which, along with the Doctor Who TV movie is the only new program I think I made the point of watching during that year. I've often wondered it how it would hold up now that "season long continuing storylines" are a lot more normal to me. Now I get to find out. (If it had been a joke on the other end of the link, I would have been so pissed."

It kinda annoys me that Hulu has free Murder One now. I paid Amazon good money for that show! ;)
posted by wierdo at 5:01 PM on April 4, 2011


I'm suprised no one's mentioned The Public Safety Alert posted on Crooked Timber, detailling a "voluntary recall" from the National Governors Association in DC.

From the thread: “We didn’t know, when we made these governors available to the public, how truly dangerous they were,” said an NGA representative who requested anonymity because he feared swift and remorseless retaliation from one of the defective governors.  “In most cases, they seemed like fully functioning human beings.  But now it appears that many of them avoided routine safety checks or managed to buy off safety regulators.”
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:07 AM on April 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


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