The Google April Fools’ 2013 list of jokes seems the most comprehensive one so far, and it looks like Googlers have gone out of their way to make this April Fools’ Day the funniest one possible. Here’s what Google did for April Fools Day this year.
YouTube shutting down
One of the first jokes was the one about YouTube shutting down after it selected the best video ever posted. According to the video, the site would no longer accept submissions, and, when it would come back online in 2023, would only feature the video considered to be the best one ever uploaded.Google Nose
One of the most interesting ideas that Google has been touting today is Google Nose. This new Search feature allows users to actually search for smells in the Google Aromabase, which includes 15M+ “scentibytes” of smells. The feature is said to be still in beta mode, but uses some of Google’s existing services to make things more precise, including “Android Ambient Odor Detection”, which uses “the world’s most sensible operating system”. While you can’t argue with that description of Android, the feature is still a great joke.The page describing Google Nose has some links to related services, like AdScent for Business and Scratch and Sniff Books, which allows you to smell the books, too, when you preview them. Funny as this may sound, smell-related features may become possible in the future.
Google Maps Treasure Hunt
The Google Maps team announces on its official blog (link below) that Google Maps now has a Treasure mode, which users can explore, in order to find pirate William “Captain” Kidd’s treasure. The treasure mode can be accessed , and a very funny video explains the whole process. It seems to be functional, so it will be most interesting to see what’s hidden at the end of it.Gmail Blue
For those with a dryer sense of humor, the Gmail Blog is introducing Gmail Blue. This new feature, one the Gmail team wanted to incorporate in the email service ever since the beginning, makes everything in Gmail blue (what a surprise!), without really changing everything. The video simply says it all.Google SCHMICK
Coming from the Google Australia Blog, this April Fools’ joke is one of the funniest – it promotes the all-new Simple Complete House Makeover Internet Conversion Kit (or Google SCHMICK). It is advertised as an add-on to Google Street View, which allows users to pimp their houses with a variety of themes and features. While Google SCHMICK doesn’t actually work (or exist, for that matter), if it would, it could make your house look like this:
Google Analytics – visitors from outer space
One of the more hidden Google April Fools 2013 jokes comes from the Google Analytics team. If you check out Real Time visits to your site today, you’ll notice in the Location section that you’ve received visits from the International Space Station (as you can see in the screenshot below).For instance, there were supposedly 41 visitors from the ISS’ Control Room on our site when this article was written.
Google+ photos +emotion
As Google Staff Software Engineer Erik Murphy-Chutorian announced on his Google+, Google’s social network (which has an updated app), now allows users to use emoticons to express the feelings in the pictures they upload. This is done using a new icon that appears in the photo viewer screen, and clicking it will generate an emoticon based on the image. The funny thing is that this feature, called +Emotion, actually works. It will be interesting to see whether it will remain active after April Fools Day.
Google Fiber Poles
While everybody in Kansas City must love Google Fiber, nobody must have thought that they can actually get connected to it through utility poles. The truth is that they can’t, but it would be pretty nice for this April Fools joke to come true. You would just use the Google Fiber app to download whatever content you may need on the go, from a utility pole. Maybe an indicator of things to come?Google Apps: Levity Algorithm
Last but not least, the Google Apps team introduces the Levity Algorithm, which makes boring office tasks, like presentations, meetings and email memos, more fun, using material from 50 years of comedy. And with it being endorsed by Rick Wesley from a company called Bohr & Ringge CPA Group, who are we to argue?Of course, none of the “new features” above are to be taken seriously (although our April Fools article about the reason why we love the iPhone 5 is very serious).
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