April Fools Watch
Adotas mentions new AdSense unit sizes of 1×1 pixel and 2560×1920 pixels. What about people with bigger screens than that though?
How the heck did the Sydney Morning Herald find out about Google’s quantum-based spam filtering?
Philipp notices Google’s new room search prototype.
Ask introduces RhymeRank, which lets you find related queries that rhyme with your original query. It may only work in English, but that’s okay: it’s in gamma release.
Here’s my favorite though. MSN allows anyone to make up their own fake search results. I oblige. But the best part? I tried to customize the jokes in Firefox and got an error message: “xml could not be sent: Permission denied.” Meta-humor, or just incompatibility? Either way, it’s funny. Wait, I tried it in IE and it didn’t work either:
Oh well, it’s still funny. What’s the best April Fools Joke you’ve seen or done?
Update: Slashdot decided to go with a fresh new pink color scheme and ponies:
Yahoo! bought all of Web 2.0! The whole shebang! I’ve done a panel at the Web 2.0 conference; does this mean that Yahoo! has also acquired . . . me?!
And Google rolls out a new product on the first day of Q2: Google Romance. I’m glad we’re applying the power of our search technology to finding that special someone. Looks like the upload has already crashed under the strain, but I was able to download the FAQ page. Here’s a couple questions:
10. What do you mean when you say Google Romance is a beta product?
What do you mean when you ask us what we mean when we say Google Romance is a beta product? It is what is it, okay? It’s new, it’s probably still buggy, which is to say that yes, by using this product now you conceivably are setting yourself up for a disastrous outcome – but on the other hand, you might also be on the verge of thrilling to an experience that will transform your very existence and only could have come about because you took this step, right here, right now. You’re online; take a chance. We may never pass this way again. Carpe diem. The world could, like, end tomorrow, you know? Gather ye rosebuds while –11. Okay, okay, I’ll try it.
Great, babe, great.
It’s a shame I’m happily married; this looks like an interesting product. Go ahead and take the tour.
Update: Looks like there’s aliens in Google Earth and a dog on the Whitehouse lawn.
Via Philipp, there’s a ton of news. There’s the new Google Browser. Only 1.68M! Also, Google apparently acquired textfiles.com for “somewhere in the neighborhood of A Dozen Fat Sacks of Mad Cash.”. Nice. And finally, you can track zombies with Google Maps; read how on deathhacker.
If you enjoyed Guitar Hero, it looks like a sequel is coming out: Cowbell Hero! And ibiblio has proposed a <BLING> tag.
Looks like the Wikipedia entry for April Fools 2006 is doing a much better job of tracking breaking April 1st news; I’d just go there.
jake Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 5:35 pm
I’m still kinda hoping that Big Daddy was some kind of elongated April fool. If so, that’d be great because I assume Google would then revert the indexes back to their former glory, once the joke is over.
If I’m mistaken, and BD is not an April fool: is anyone at Google looking into the “missing pages” problem? You know, the one that huge numbers of people are reporting - where 50,000 pages of a site go AWOL from the BD index despite thse pages being crawled on a daily basis? No amount of crawling seems to put them back. This is not the same as the famous “Supplemental” problem. These missing pages are just not there.
Hawaii SEO Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 5:56 pm
Google Stock Crashes in After-Hours Trading due to the newly installed “BigMommy” data center refusing to interface with the “BigDaddy” data center. Hopes of producing a family of “BigBaby” data centers now seem unlikely for the Internet search giant this quarter.
Developing…
http://hawaii-online-advertising.com/blog/
corey Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 6:18 pm
best online aprils fools joke was nasas water on mars found
and then you see a pic of a mars bar with a glass of water on it
but what about the lastest pagerank datacenter updates?
APRIL FOOLS! ?
Tedster Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 6:35 pm
– Wireless Extension Cords –
Neat gadget, but just try to put it in your Shopping Cart.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/wec.shtml
– Dolphins Surfing the Internet with Opera Mini –
So what if KDE Konqueror passed the Acid2 test?
http://my.opera.com/djysrv/blog/show.dml/203690
Jason Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 8:06 pm
Sitepoint have posted a beauty today - supposedly written by Jason *Gried* of 37 *Singles*. Very clever!
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/application-fluff-hot-air
Adam Senour Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 8:43 pm
http://www.homestarrunner.com/underconstruction.html
20XD6!
(They hijacked their own domain with this two years ago.)
Joe Hunkins Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 9:11 pm
Hey - MSN knows Inigo!
http://www.mymsnsearch.com/results.aspx?q=inigo+montoya&FORM=CwlKszKZS6Z6
Simon Heseltine Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 9:52 pm
Well, since this is my first year with my own blog, I’m just doing the standard “Me and the wife going bungee jumping out of a plane” scam, probably won’t fool anyone for long…
http://heseltine.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_heseltine_archive.html
Simon Heseltine Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 10:11 pm
Oh, and it looks like slashdot is getting in on the fun with a new design…
” Our marketing department has done extensive research over the last 3 quarters and discovered that our audience is strangely disproportionately skewed towards males. Like, 98.3% males to be precise. To correct this oversight, we have decided to subtly tweak Slashdot’s design and content to widen our appeal to these less active demographics. Don’t worry! We’ll still continue to serve our core audience, but we hope you’ll work with us as we try to find a balance that will work for all.”
http://slashdot.org/articles/06/03/31/1644225.shtml
Harith Said,
March 31, 2006 @ 10:37 pm
Good morning Matt
Sorry for posting off-topic.
How come that you haven’t told us that you are moving soon toGoogle NASA office
Congrats and good luck!.
Stephen Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 12:40 am
Hey Matt
Hmmmz - I guess you know that most of us will probably go for the Bulk Upload option
User B - based on a typical Webmaster ?
Stephen Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 12:48 am
Also I wonder if you make a duplicate profile you end up with split personality results (split PR) and get pushed to the bottom of the result page and can only be found if a friends profile mentioned you.
Dom Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 1:19 am
Hey, did you hear Mozilla bought Internet Explorer?!
Read all about it here:
http://www.farstyle.com/web_design/mozilla_buys_internet_explorer/
I know, I couldn’t believe it either…
Adnan Siddiqi Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 2:10 am
YOu guys have been taken over by China and you are yet blogging here?
http://www.theregister.com/2006/04/01/china_buys_google/
Unofficial SEO Blog Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 4:55 am
Mine is the latest one, Google Romance
http://www.google.com/romance/
Simon Heseltine Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 4:58 am
Another one for you… Lucas films announces the new line of Adult Star Wars films including “Slave Girl of Tattooine”
http://locusmag.com/2006/Features/0401_Adult_Star_Wars.html
Paul van Veenendaal Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 5:43 am
Google to advertise on the moon
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2153220/google-brand-moon
PhilC Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 7:35 am
Dammit, I thought up the write-only memory for an article I wrote 15 years ago! The smh.com.au article pinched/nicked/stole it - hrmph!!!
Joseph Morin Said,
April 1, 2006 @ 10:58 am
Hey Matt,
(I mean Jeremy - sorry ’bout that) This was absolutely brilliant!
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2153220/google-brand-moon
Nothing like getting the word out…
Joe
Rob Said,
April 4, 2006 @ 7:07 pm
Hah mine was http://www.webmasterspad.com and the blog http://www.webmasterspad.com/blog
michael Said,
April 12, 2006 @ 9:35 am
Maybe it is a strange aprils fool joke. But I see .eu domains are coming out! Must be a joke to stuff geo-positioning of domains - if .eu is multiple nation wide but not global how do you work out which index to display the site in.
AS .eu hosted in the states which search listings do you put it in.
Have fun with trying to work out which index to put it into!
FGS Said,
June 15, 2006 @ 2:54 am
After checking the new “AdSense unit size”, I cant help but follow the text to checkout “milliongooglepixel.com”. Hmmm, it seems to be still available. These people really have too much time to play such a game.
luk Said,
October 23, 2006 @ 5:52 am
tres interessant votre blog
luk Said,
November 1, 2006 @ 8:52 am
vraiement sympa votre blog
paul Said,
November 9, 2006 @ 7:20 am
.
Scented Candles Said,
December 5, 2006 @ 6:29 am
Google romance! I need to try that!
Sterling Silver Jewelry Said,
December 5, 2006 @ 6:30 am
Go Cowbell Hero!
Throw Pillows Said,
March 5, 2007 @ 7:31 am
Tried Adsense and did not muck luck!