Fools' Friday

Ah, yes, April 1st, a day of fabulous trickery. Fun, isn't it? How many false pregnancies, engagements, and relationships were announced via Facebook today? How many people actually smelled the scratch and sniff Daily Universe today? (My roommate did. I didn't.) I think April Fools' Day is kind of fun. It's fun to hear the tricks people have up their sleeves. And I do love Google. I remember their trick from 2008:

Gmail Custom Time

Gmail's sign-in page and a banner at the top of each Gmail inbox announced a new feature, called Gmail Custom Time, that would allow its users to "pre-date" their messages and choose to have the message appear as "read" or "unread". The new feature uses the slogan "Be on time. Every time."

Around 11:00 p.m. EST March 31, 2008, on the newer and older version of Gmail, but not in the basic HTML version, in the upper right corner, next to Settings, a link appeared labeled, "New! Gmail Custom Time". The link led to a 404 error until April 1,^[6][7] when it led to the full Gmail Custom Time hoax page.^[8] Clicking any of the three links at the bottom of the page brought the user to a page stating that Gmail Custom time was, in fact, their April Fool's Day joke.

Google wrote that the new joke feature "utilizes an e-flux capacitor [a pun from the movie Back to the Future] to resolve issues of causality." Fake testimonials were given by "beta users"; one example is, "I used to be an honest person; but now I don't have to be. It's just so much easier this way. I've gained a lot of productivity by not having to think about doing the 'right' thing."

The feature only allowed for ten pre-dated emails per year, claiming that any more "would cause people to lose faith in the accuracy of time, thus rendering the feature useless."

(Wikipedia)

I rather enjoyed today's as well. http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

Did you get tricked today? Did you pull a prank of your own? Do tell. And have a happy April 1st.