Google does April Fools day 2013

Google goes to pretty extrordainary lengths every year with their April Fools gags, despite launching one of their best known products on an April Fools Day back in 2004 these days their April Fools day escapades tend to be less than serious. Today’s pranks has seen some pretty cool ones come about. So what have they had :

YouTube Shutdown :
To accomodate different time-zones, Google actually launched this last night on their YouTube blog. The post from ‘Competition Director’ Tim Liston Announcing that after 8 years, they’re actually wanting to close down YouTube and choose a winner for best video uploaded.

To our incredible YouTube community,

When we started out in 2005, we focused on rapidly increasing user engagement. We wanted an inventive way to draw people in and catalyze their creativity. The result? A contest for the best video on our site.

Nearly eight years later, with 72 hours of video being uploaded every minute, we finally have enough content to close the competition. We’ve started the process to select a winner and as of tomorrow at midnight, we will be closing the site to submissions.

Watch the video below to hear from our leadership, the minds behind some of our most famous entries, and the panel of judges who will select our nominees, and ultimately, the winner for “Best Video.”

And be sure to tune in for Day 1 of our live ceremony from 9 a.m. PT, April 1, when we will begin announcing the “Best Video” nominees. This announcement will resume for 12 hours every day for the next two years.

Thank you for sharing your creativity, irreverence, ideas and knowledge with us and with viewers around the world.

Check out the video :

YouTube Collection on DVD :
By clicking on the logo in the top left hand page of the Youtube.com page you get sent to http://www.youtube.com/TheYouTubeCollection where a video announces that you can now purchase the complete YouTube collection on DVD. The page is pretty amusing, delivery options include either having your collection delivered by Shipping Trucks, Freight Vessels or Postal Service(Please anticipate extended delivery times). Your YouTube collection can arrive Gift Wrapped or you can have a Crate of complimentary gift wrapping paper included. You can get your collection delivered in DVD, VHS, BetaMax or LaserDisc format.

For the complete collection of all genres which include Sports, Comedy, Viral Highlights, How To, Makeup Tutorials, Cooking Lessons, Education, Cover Songs, Kittens and Puppies, Video Game Walkthroughs, Dubstep Remixes, Unboxing Videos, Fails, Flash Mobs and “Stuff” People Say, you’re looking at 458,347 discs with a total cost including shipping of $2,346,453. Cheap?

Google Nose :
Imagine being able to access the smell related to your search, well now you can with Google Nose – the New Scentsation in Search, the Google Aromabase contains over 15M+ scentibytes. Leveraging the power of the world’s most sensible mobile operating system, Android with Ambient Odor Detection that collects smells. Google Nose also utilises Street Sense vehicles that have inhaled and indexed millions of atmospheric miles. If you’re worried about hitting a bad smell, don’t worry, there is a Safe Search function built-in.

Hit the Google Nose product page for a complete run down of the features or watch the video below :

Gmail Blue :
After the Beta launched on April 1st 2004, Google has included Gmail in their yearly April Fools prank this year. Via the Gmail Blog, Google has introduced Gmail Blue. It’s Gmail…but bluer!

Google Treasure Map :
Now, for Google Maps turn. From the Google Lat-Long blog, Google has announced that during an expedition to expand their underwater Street View collection they found a treasure map belonging to the infamous pirate, William “Captain” Kidd.

They’ve apparently digitised the map and released it onto Google Maps where everyone can access it. Simply click here or on the “Treasure” button in the top right corner of Google Maps. You can follow the treasure hunt on the Google Maps, Google+ page

Google+ – Your photos +Emotion :
From this Google+ post, it appears that Google has added an algorithim to Google+ to allow you the option to add an emoticon to your photos when you upload them. Simply click the Emoticon button and your photos will be evaluated and an appropriate emoticon will be added.

Google Fiber to the Pole :
After a successful rollout of Google Fiber in Kansas City(both of them). Google has announced Google Fiber to the Pole via the Google+ page, looks cool check out the video.

Google Play Developer Console – Automatic Awesome Apps :
Google Play developers can now relax, all the awesome apps will now be created automatically for you.

There’s a whole heap of options including choosing who will work on your app, including the choice to have just Larry and Sergey on the job. It certainly makes the $25 Google Play Developers fee look pretty enticing.

So, that’s all the ones I’ve seen today, but due to the international date line April Fools Day isn’t over for a while yet so there may be more appearing overnight. Apart from those above, which other April Fools gags from Google have you seen?

Update :
Looks like I missed the Google Australia April Fools joke – Street View with Google SCHMICK (Simple Complete House Makeover Internet Conversion Kit). SCHMICK is the online house building/decorating kit, where you can add all sorts of details on your house so that when viewed on Street View it looks totally sick! It looks like it works great too :


You can check out all about the launch of SCHMICK here.

Google Wallet ATM :
Looks like Australia misses out again, the Google Wallet service has launched a dongle attachment for your Android device which dispenses cash. When the ATM attachment runs low on funds a self-driving, armored, hybrid vehicle will be alerted and dispatched to your location – arriving within minutes to quickly and safely refill their ATM.

I think we’d all settle for a working Google Wallet service in Australia but I think even Google knows that’s just too much for an April Fools Day prank.