April Fool’s Day online

Last night I had this conversation with my husband:

Him: “Virgin America is installing Nest [automated thermostats] into each of its seats.”

Me: “That’s too much.”

Him: “But still cool.”

Today I see an update from Virgin’s founder, Richard Branson, announcing that they’re reinventing flying. “Virgin America is the first airline to introduce this feature, with every seat enjoying settings ranging from ‘Cancun Afternoon’ to ‘Chicago Polar Vortex’.” The other choices listed in their on-site quiz were: NYC Subway Sweaty, Texas BBQ, Pacific Northwest Drizzle, and Standard Day in Los Angeles. Well, that definitely tipped me off.

I’ll be honest: I’m terrified of April Fool’s. I’ll go along with your prank, just in case you’re being serious. Also, I’m just gullible. Now I can also be fooled through the magic of the internet. Thanks, internet.

Lots of companies have reputations for pulling April Fool’s Day jokes on their customers. Google always has something going on. Last year they “planned” to launch a phone that could smell. Just in case you felt incomplete before. Every year, companies try to do it bigger and better. (Side note: there are unfortunate April 1st announcements, such as Gmail, 10 years ago & Obamacare sign-ups hitting 7 million, today).

Here a few jokes I’ve encountered today:

Sephora on Facebook

The makeup chain posted a “bro tip” during the day.

 Even though it was obviously for April 1, they got some negative comments aimed at the tip itself. That made it funnier, but I don’t think they get any points for this. It would’ve been more effective if they redid their whole Facebook page, or even their homepage to feature some strange products. I can think of some crazy-sounding real ones.

King’s College Choir on helium

Though I had never heard of this choir, I watched the video and was pleasantly surprised. They get points for entertainment value.

Netflix makes you hungry

A friend posted a video of what he found. Thanks, buddy, for letting me know to stay off Netflix today.

Tumblr Pro

In the sidebar, Tumblr advertised its “pro” version. The video that pops up when you click on it was the best part (although I’ll enjoy my internet top hat as long as I can). It features amazing quotes such as: “the human race began as an idea, [pause] and it will end with one.” The quiet piano melody paired with a calm narrator saying creepy things made it work so well! Sounds like Tumbr’s encouraging a world-wide takeover by gathering an army of its pro users. It’s just a wait-and-see kind of thing.

 Gmail “shelfie”

An option to change my accounts theme to a photo of myself, or of someone else. Given the popularity of selfies, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just let you keep it after April 1. Did everyone have this pop up? Google also announced this new feature on their official blog. It’s logic is illustrated with this fancy graph.

Nice touch, Google.

NSA offers to backup ALL of your data

A few months ago I wrote a post about the NSA and changes to American privacy. So I was quite eager to read this article I found on Twitter.

“The fact is, even people who don’t think they’ve moved to the Cloud, actually have already moved to the Cloud – our Cloud. We put all their stuff into it years ago; and talk about a seamless transition! They didn’t even realise we’d done it…”

It’s obviously a parody, but still so satisfying to read.

Google Pokemon Master

Google has mastered my favorite kind of April Fool’s creations. The ones that are slightly obvious or  fairly innocent. I heard about the new Google Maps Pokemon feature and tested it out on my phone. Imagine loading directions your next travel destination and discovering the area is full of Pokemon! They should keep this forever. Or until someone catches them all…

Did you see any noteworthy tricks online? Did you get pranked at work or school today?