I confess myself disappointed. I finally break my 2+ years of not pulling a practical joke on April Fool’s Day and the Internet on the whole turns up a mediocre performance.
First, Googler and practical funnyman extraordinaire Matt Cutts decided he was “skipping April Fools this year.” What?! OK, well so it turned out that his post, itself, was actually the joke. But really Matt, we expect more from you than a faux Firefox tattoo. Although I did like the iPhone feature gag.
As for Google, Virgle was neat and had a bunch of people talking. But the Google Custom Time was truly clever. How many people actually fell for that one?
G’Day – With MATE was a bit obvious, though, wasn’t it? Was this a bad spin-off from a another team that tried to capture the creativity of Custom Time?
Since Google owns YouTube now, I guess you have to give them credit for the Rick Rolling, I guess. What? You weren’t RickRolled? Another great prank with a prime property, we’ve now have another Internet lingo added to our vocabulary – Rickroll, verb, to force someone to watch the video for Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.
But What I Really Wanted To See…
Where was the Microsoft logo on the Yahoo! home page? Come on, Jerry. Really, now. If the ship is going down, wear the damage as a badge of honor. If Yahoo! will sail away on its own, then use it as a symbolic middle finger to the giant corporate bully. Either way, you’ll get people talking, some PR and perhaps a stock boost when we all find out it was a joke.