April Fools Suckers

Whether you were the prankster or the prankee, chances are you partook in the annual tradition that is April Fools day.
Love it or hate it, today is the one day that companies stop taking themselves too seriously many putting a surprising amount of thought and effort into making small pranks and videos that their customers and other viewers online will have fun with.
Finding the best of the best is overwhelming which is why I searched and searched and bring you my favorite round up from The Verge.  Here are 11 of their favorites from 2015 — some because they’re funny, others because they’re interesting, and others for showing a bit of personality. You can view them all below and here.

MOTOROLA’S SELFIE STICK
For April Fools’ Day, Motorola turns the much-derided selfie stick into high art. Its video is a wonderfully funny parody of the craftsmanship films that tech companies, Kickstarter campaigns, and generally hip companies like to make about their new products. And honestly, it’ll kind of make you want a hand-made selfie stick.

GOOGLE’S SMARTBOX
What are the chances something like this ends up on Kickstarter by the end of the month? A digital mailbox is a silly concept, but we wouldn’t put it past anyone. One San Francisco startup even offered a service that digitized your mail by having its employees come get your letters and then scan them and put them online. It shut down after about a year.

THINKGEEK’S STEAM MACHINE
Steam Machines haven’t exactly taken the gaming world by storm, but they’d probably sell a lot better if they looked like this and were bundled with a copy of BioShock. ThinkGeek is always one of the more fun sites to visit on April Fools’ Day because of its dedication to making up weird gadgets and apparel, but this one wins for identifying a pun and just going for it.

TESLA’S AUTONOMOUS PARKING TICKET AVOIDANCE
Tesla gets points for idea over execution. Its video isn’t anywhere as sharp as, say, Motorola’s, but the idea that autonomous cars could one day avoid parking tickets for you is interesting and sounds like it could even be possible. Why couldn’t your self-driving car just find another spot when its parking time was up? For now, you’re still stuck with parking garages (or, you know, public transit).

GOOGLE MAPS’ PAC-MAN
Google is serious about April Fools’ Day. Each year, pranks usually come out of multiple corners of the company — some good, some bad, and some that seem to involve a surprising amount of work. This year, that’s Google Maps’ Pac-Man mode, which can turn areas of the globe into maps that you can play Pac-Man on. Definitely a potential winner for best of 2015.

COM.GOOGLE
Is there a better possible use of Google’s custom top-level domain? Probably not. Just head there and try it out…I did and it’s pretty weird / cool.

FUNNY OR DIE’S DIPS
Just joking about creating an app for 1.5-second videos would be one thing — one not-all-that-funny thing — but actually getting together tons of 1.5-second videos from celebrities makes Funny or Die’s April Fools prank pretty impressive. Click through for some weird and super-short moments from your favorite comedians, musicians, and other stars.

MICROSOFT’S MS-DOS MOBILE
A solid combination of idea and execution: Microsoft doesn’t just joke about bringing back its classic command-line operating system — it’s actually making a DOS app available for Windows Phone. Be sure to check out some of its not-so-secret commands.

REDDIT’S “THE BUTTON”
Maybe it’s real. Maybe it’s fake. Who cares. Reddit put a button on its site that supposedly resets a 60-second countdown every time someone click it. What, if anything, will happen if the timer makes it all the way down? Who cares. This is arguably the best button since Lost Season 2.

NETFLIX’S BINGE WATCH WARNINGS
Let Netflix make fun of you for sitting around on your couch all day with its series of binge watch warnings. One of 13 warning videos is supposed to show up if you stream more than two episodes in a row of any show. Check them out now — it looks like they disappear tomorrow.

YOUTUBE’S “SANDSTORM” OBSESSION
Points for absurdity. If you search for a musician or a song today, YouTube will ask if you meant to search for “‘Sandstorm’ by Darude.” It also lets you pump snippets of “Sandstorm” into any video that you’re watching, making it dramatically more exciting.

Wait a second — why do we even celebrate this?
Ever wondered why you spent your entire day reading nonsense from the four corners of the Web? Here’s why, in two minutes. You’re welcome.

Alya