April Foolin'
Whatever you do, don't click on any videos on YouTube's home page today.
It's the first of April, so it's time for another round of Internet pranks. YouTube has executed one of the most audacious, or maybe just annoying, April Fool's tricks ever by pointing every home-page video link to the same clip of '80s pop singer Rick Astley singing "Never Gonna Give You Up." (Sending people to this particular video--aka "rickrolling"--is considered funny, for reasons that this author may be too old to appreciate fully.)
Other branches of the Google empire are also doing their part for today by announcing such initiatives as a "new airplane" paper-airplane template in Google Docs, a "custom time" option for Gmail that allows mail to arrive in the past, a search feature that works one day into the future and a Mars colonization project. (The application to join that asks would-be Martians if waiting up to 40 minutes for an e-mail response would cause them to "die" or "rejoice," among other options.)
The writers of the TidBits newsletter have written a special 4/1 issue for years; the 2008 edition covers the launch of an iPhone that includes an Iridium satellite-phone receiver, reports that a federal court has ruled e-mail bankruptcy illegal, and announces that TidBits readers can now opt for a new subscription service that condenses each article into a 140-word summary, written in LOLCat and delivered via Twitter (for example, a recent piece on the role of security software on a Mac would read "Macs can haz virusez? No, U r doin good. But f u haz Windoze BFz, can iz in ur mail sistem. So u iz tell ur ISP 2 blok spam an virusez, k?").
Finally, I'm not sure if this counts as an April Fool's prank or not, but the Mosaic Communications Corp. home page has made a mysterious resurrection in its circa-1994 appearance. Take a look, and you'll probably feel a lot better about your own Web-design skills.
Seen any other good April Fool's jokes on the Web? Talk about them/warn people away from them in the comments!
By Rob Pegoraro |
April 1, 2008; 12:01 PM ET
| Category:
Digital culture
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Posted by: Chris | April 1, 2008 1:45 PM
WHATEVR U DO, DOAN CLICK ON ANY VIDEOS ON YOUTUBEZ HOME PAEG TODAI.
Posted by: LOLCAT | April 1, 2008 1:55 PM
LOL ROB PEGARAROAR GOT RICK ROLLED AND HEZ ALL FLUSTERED. IM SORRY U CANT WATCH THE LONLEYGRL16 VIDEOZ TODAYZ ROFLOLZ.
Posted by: FAT CAT | April 1, 2008 2:42 PM
lighten up rob HAHAHAHA. u need to realize that there is a phenomenon and it's name is RICKROLL. IT JUST CUT YOU UP INTO SMALL PIECES - THERE GOES ROB INTO SMALL PIECES HAHAHAHAHA
Posted by: bellyflop | April 1, 2008 2:45 PM
I just recieved a rickroll url and I knowingly still clicked it anyway. And I listened to the whole song, 6 times.
Posted by: Jrob | April 1, 2008 2:51 PM
Entertainment site Valley24.com reports one Ohio city decides to raise legal drinking age to 28: http://valley24.com/
Posted by: Katie | April 1, 2008 3:53 PM
Entertainment site Valley24.com reports one Ohio city decides to raise legal drinking age to 28: http://valley24.com/
Posted by: Katie | April 1, 2008 3:53 PM
Backstreets.com, the Springsteen fan site, offers fake Springsteen news on its News page:
http://www.backstreets.com/news.html
Posted by: Pete | April 1, 2008 4:49 PM
Google Calendar has a button when you add an event to your calendar that says "I'm Feeling Lucky" just like the Google homepage.
If you click this button instead of the "Create Event" button next to it, it reworks your schedule ever so slightly. Rather lame, but interesting that they added it for today. I assume it will be gone tomorrow.
Posted by: josef | April 1, 2008 6:27 PM
Well apparently, Rick Astley isn't the only former singer celeb being rolled. MC Hammer has now fallen victim to the craze, as people are now getting "HammerRolled".
A website located at http://HammerRolled.com explains this version of the gold 'ole Rick Roll.
Posted by: Speedy | April 3, 2008 1:53 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
The Mozilla site is up because it is the 10th anniversary of Mozilla.