Google’s April Fools Hoaxes

Google has often adopted a light-hearted approach in a variety of circumstances. The most popular instances of Google Humor are the April Fool Jokes. Google has had a tradition of perpetrating April Fool’s Day hoaxes.

2000: Google MentalPlex

Google announced a new “MentalPlex” search technology that supposedly read the user’s mind to determine what the user wanted to search for, thus eliminating the step of actually typing in the search query.

• Google MentalPlex
• Google MentalPlex FAQ
• Google MentalPlex Usage Illustrations

2002: Pigeon Rank

Google reveals the technology behind its PageRank System — PigeonRank. Google touts the benefits of this cost-effective and efficient means of ranking pages and reassures readers that there is no animal cruelty involved in the process. The article makes many humorous references and puns based on computer terminology and how Google PageRank really works.

• Pigeon Rank

2004: Google Lunar/Copernicus Center

Fictitious job opportunities for a research center on the moon. Luna/X pun to Linux as well as a reference to the Windows XP visual style and Mac OS X is the name of a new operating system they claimed to have created for working at the research center.

• Google Copernicus Center

2005: Google Gulp

Google Gulp, a fictitious drink, was announced by Google in 2005. According to the company, this beverage would optimize one’s use of the Google search engine by increasing the drinker’s intelligence. It was claimed this boost was achieved through real-time analysis of the user’s DNA and carefully tailored adjustments toneurotransmitters in the brain (a patented technology termed Auto-Drink). The drink was said to come in “4 great flavors”: Glutamate Grape (glutamic acid), Sugar-Free Radical (free radicals), Beta Carroty (beta carotene), and Sero-Tonic Water (serotonin).

This hoax was likely intended as a parody of Google’s invite-only email service called Gmail. Although ostensibly free, the company claimed the beverage could only be obtained by returning the cap of a Google Gulp bottle to a local grocery store. In the Google Gulp FAQ Google replies to the observation “I mean, isn’t this whole invite-only thing kind of bogus?” by saying “Dude, it’s like you’ve never even heard of viral marketing.”

• Google Gulp
• Google Gulp FAQ

2006: Google Romance

On April Fool’s Day 2006 Google Romance was announced on the main Google search page with the introduction, “Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance.” It pretends to offer a “Soulmate Search” to send users on a “Contextual Date”. A parody of online dating, it amusingly had a link for “those who generally favor the ‘throw enough stuff at the wall’ approach to online dating” to Post multiple profiles with a bulk upload file, you sleaze in addition to Post your Google Romance profile. Clicking on either of these gave an error page, which explained that it was an April Fool’s joke and included links to previous April Fool’s Jokes for nostalgia.

• Google Romance™
• Google Romance™ FAQ
• Google Romance™ Tour

2007: Gmail Paper

At about 10:00 PM Pacific time (where Google has its headquarters) the day before April 1, 2007, Google changed the login page for Gmail to announce a new service called Gmail Paper. The service offered to allow users of Google’s free webmail service to add e-mails to a “Paper Archive,” which Google would print (on “96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum and mail via traditional post. The service would be free, supported by bold, red advertisements printed on the back of the printed messages. Image attachments would also be printed on high-quality glossy paper and be postmarked with their message, though MP3 and WAV files would not be printed. The page detailing more information about the service features photographs of Ian Spiro and Carrie Kemper, current employees of Google. Also featured are Product Marketing Managers of Gmail Anna-Christina Douglas, and Kevin Systrom.

• Gmail Paper Index
• Gmail Paper Announcement
• Gmail Paper Program Policies

2007: Google TiSP

Google TiSP (short for Toilet Internet Service Provider) was a fictitious free broadband service supposedly released by Google. This service would make use of a standard toilet and sewage lines to provide free Internet connectivity at a speed of 8 Mbps (2Mbps Upload)(or up to 32 Mbps with a paid plan). A user drops a weighted end of a long, Google-supplied fiber-optic cable in their toilet and flushes it. Around 60 minutes later, the end would be recovered and connected to the Internet by a “Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD).” The user then connects their end to a Google-supplied wireless router and run the Google-supplied installation media on a Windows XP or Vista computer (“Mac and Linux support coming soon”). Alternatively, a user could request a professional installation, where Google would deploy nanobots through the plumbing to complete the process. The free service would be supported by “discreet DNA sequencing” of “personal bodily output” to display online ads that relate to culinary preferences and personal health.

• Google TiSP
• Google TiSP FAQ
• Installation page
• Press Release page
• Not found page – April fools version

ref: wikipedia