Some of you have noticed that we’ve added a new “Top category” for this April Fools Day, called … April Fools Day.
For all you funny nerd/geek types out there, the IT-related websites provided many reasons to laugh.
Here are the pranks:

1. GOOGLE is our champion this year, they had some pretty well built pranks and some made perfect sense. Remember that some might be true, they launched Gmail on April 1st and we couldn’t believe it was true.

a. gDay – from Google Australia – enables us to search into the future. With their smart computer algorithms they can look into any page, even the National Lottery page. Amazing. This comes from a company with advanced Pigeon Rank technology, no wonder they’ve built this. Link here.

b. Virgle – from Google Main Blog – we’ll embark on a journey to Mars, through a 100 years program by Google and Virgin. Link here.

“Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.”

c. Social Search Engine – from Google China. A few years ago Google told us that they used pigeons to deliver fast results and now.. the people over at Google China are using PEOPLE. Chinese underpaid people. A whole army of them. And their social networks. Link here (translated from Chinese, it might have some grammar mistakes).

d. Google Japan launched some special DAJARE search. You figure it out, I didn’t understand the translated page. Link here.

e. You can create a new plane with Google Docs. Paper plane.

f. Similar to gDay, Gmail Custom Time allows you to send an email in the Past. It will appear in the recipients Inbox at a selected hour in the past. Link here.

g. Google Calendar launched a wake-up kit. It’s wonderful, just like The Jetsons had.

“The wake up notification uses several progressively more annoying alerts to wake you up. First it will send an SMS message to your phone. If that fails, more coercive means will be used. The kit includes an industrial-sized bucket and is designed to be connected to your water main for automatic filling. In addition, a bed-flipping device is included for forceful removal from your sleeping quarters.” Link here.

2. The Pirate Bay couldn’t surprise me this year, after a similar hoax last year. This time it wasn’t North Korea, they moved their servers to “the desert of Sinai, in Egypt”. Come on, people!! You can do better that that!! BTW: They have a Pirates Political Party in Sweden and every 6th swede is a file sharer. Link here.

3. GIMP released a manual in Esperanto. A fake manual. Link here.

4. Linux Journal changed their name to BeOS journal. Link here.

5. Orkut replaced its own logo in internal pages with a similar-looking logo that reads “Yogurt.”

6. Overclockers Australia announced that they had moved away from PCs and that their new sponsor was Apple Inc.

7. Adsense introduced Adsense for Conversations. This one is a gem. From the Adsense site:

We’re happy to announce the launch of AdSense for conversations, a new type of monetization solution that “puts the ‘context’ in contextual advertising”. Now, in just a few simple steps, you can begin displaying ads that are relevant to the topics you’re discussing — in an unobtrusive screen above your head.

Anyone taking part in the conversation can hit the ad with their hand to immediately take advantage of the product or service being offered. With our new Teleportation Technology(TM), you’ll be transported directly to the site where the service is available, or have the product appear instantaneously in your hands.

Based on our omega testing, we’ve noticed a few common questions among publishers that we’d like to answer.

Link here.

8. Infoworld told us that Google bought Facebook. Link here.

9. Search Engine Land tells us that each American could make 1 million dollars each year if they decide to use a custom search for Live, the Microsoft search engine. This one is hilarious and can get you fooled if you don’t pay attention to the math behind it. Link here.

10. Search Engine People told us that Google will launch their own SEO Services. Link here.

11. From Marketing Pilgrim (Andy Beal) we get GWatch.

The Google USB Search Watch (Model #8002RPA10; estimated retail $89) will bring Google’s popular search engine technology to a wristwatch. Apparently users will be able to use a modified Google API to view search results on your wrist. Link here.

12. SpaceWeather claims NASA has rescheduled the solar maximum out of impatience. It was due in 2012 but is now set to occur this month.

13. TechCrunch announces that they are suing Facebook for $25 million in statutory damages.

14. Online store ThinkGeek advertised several hoax items including a YouTube Tazer, a Betamax to HD DVD converter and a new Wii video game titled Super Pii Pii Brothers.

I’m sure there are more and you are welcome to comment. I will edit the post with special thanks to the contributors.

One million dollars each year for each person. To allow them to install a software that will make sure you do not use Google or any other search engine except Live Search.

That means 1 million dollars for every american … 300 million dollars? Wrong. 300,000,000,000,000 dollars.

Read the full article here and see how the math can convince you a plan is good. The math that you don’t know, of course.

This April Fools Day prank by Search Engine Land was great, it tricked us for a while.

Engadget just received a letter from T-Mobile’s legal department (they point out their German legal department) requiring that they cease the use of the color purple in Engadget Mobile. This is very ironic since Engadget themselves underlined this whole color-trademark issue a while ago.

Engadget is already defending themselves by arguing that there can hardly be any confusion: they are not a mobile operator, they don’t have a problem with US 3G, they have more than 5 friends.

Engadget replied with a NON April Fools Day message.

WestJet Airlines in Canada announced today (April Fools Day) that they offer sleeping cabins in their modern fleet of Boeing 737 “Next-Generation aircraft”. The fee is around twelve dollars. Probably US dollars.

“WestJet now offers scheduled service to 47 destinations, continuing on our strategy to be Canada’s favourite airline,” commented Bob Cummings, Executive Vice-President Guest Experience and Marketing. “Our leather seats and live satellite television are a great part of WestJet’s guest experience however, by offering our existing overhead bins as sleeper cabins, guests will now have the opportunity to lie down for a period of time and arrive at their destination refreshed, rested and ready to go.

“The overhead compartment has traditionally been a place where guests have placed their carry-on baggage. Given that the overhead bins on our fleet are among the most spacious of any airline, we made the decision to offer sleeper cabins in that space.”

Unlike most pranksters, WestJet wanted to make sure we are able to contact them by phone (both English and French lines) to make reservations. They also spoke about  their huge network, etc but I guess it was worth it, they’ve managed to get the buzz the wanted around the company.