Bookmark this page. We'll update it with popular April Fools' hoaxes we learn about today, so you don't get fooled at work.
We're not trying to catalog every single phony press release on the Internet today. You can get that on Twitter.
This is a quick-reference list, a sort of Snopes Lite, where you can check the most widely talked about pranks.
Here's an easy way to keep from looking dumb in meetings: Any news about Google today is an April Fools' joke. The company didn't release anything for real today, nor have they issued any serious statements. They made that mistake once on April 1, 2004, when they announced a forthcoming email system called Gmail.
Google pranks
- Gmail home page -- Google really did remove all the vowels.
- Topeka -- It's a PR hoax by Google staff.
- Nuclear power -- A TechCrunch hoax.
- Don't Be Evil dropped -- Read the date, it's from last year.
- Anything with the word "CADIE" in it is fake.
- 15 more pranks by Google employees. Few are funny, but you're required to laugh anyway to prove that you're smart. In this way, Google is a lot like the Chinese government.
- YouTube text mode. Great idea, really.
- Anything being made available in 3D.
- Dumbville game on Facebook.
- Starbucks new beverage sizes.
- Wife-selling entry on Wikipedia.
- College Humor claims you're being investigated for anti-American activities because you tried to access their site.
- Butterfly attacks. Looks like someone at Qualcomm wants to work for The Onion.
- Justin Bieber has bought Funny or Die. The video made me laugh.
- Sharpie sharpener. Zurb, the perpetrators, were one of the companies that presented at our Demo conference in March.
- Facebook Community Pages -- not a prank. A clever solution to having unofficial pages for popular people or things.