10 best Google April Fool's jokes
The best of Google's japes from the last decade
Another theme with Gmail's fools is that they tend to include amusing fake testimonials on the page. "It's paper, plain and easy. I sometimes find myself wondering: what will Google think of next? Cardboard?"
7. Gmail Custom Time
Another one involving Gmail was more subtle. A new red link in the top right of users' inboxes announced a new feature – Gmail Custom Time. It supposedly enabled users to pre-date messages but "you'll only be able to send email back until 1 April, 2004, the day we launched Gmail. If we were to let you send an email from Gmail before Gmail existed, well, that would be like hanging out with your parents before you were born - crazy talk. It also claimed "Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor" – we think Doc Brown would have something to say about that.
8. Blogger "Google Weblogs (beta)
This 'enhancement' for Blogger was billed as "the next revolution in personal publishing". The premise was that Google would use its algorithms to put your best content at the top of your blog page. "Even if your later work goes downhill your previous posts will still shine. Unsure of what to post about? Just click "I'm Feeling Lucky" and we'll "take care" of the rest!"
Some of the features actually sounded appealing. "No more template languages to mess with or sidebars to get right. Our advanced Google algorithms automatically populate your blog's sidebar with the most relevant possible content."
9. Google Romance
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From the year after comes this gem. Increasingly Google's fools have become more complex, with extra pages and references elsewhere to support the theme. Romance said that "dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google".
Google also isn't afraid to poke fun at itself and how it does things. "Using our Soulmate Search, [you'll] get back search results that could, in theory, include the love of your life. Then we'll send you both on a Contextual Date, which we'll pay for while delivering to you relevant ads that we and our advertising partners think will help produce the dating results you're looking for."
10. CADIE. Or is it MySpace?
Last night, Google launched Cadie, the world's first "artificial intelligence" tasked-array system. "Tonight we're pleased to announce that just moments ago, the world's first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) was switched on and began performing some initial functions."
"Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage." Enough said.
CADIE has also seeped into other 'announcements' today, including this one from Gmail.
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Dan (Twitter, Google+) is TechRadar's Former Deputy Editor and is now in charge at our sister site T3.com. Covering all things computing, internet and mobile he's a seasoned regular at major tech shows such as CES, IFA and Mobile World Congress. Dan has also been a tech expert for many outlets including BBC Radio 4, 5Live and the World Service, The Sun and ITV News.