Friday, April 1, 2011

April Fool's pranks

I remember the days at Sun when employees would go through elaborate procedures to pull off April Fool's pranks on executives. These included:
  • Turning Scott McNealy's office into a putting green
  • Moving Bill Joy's Ferrari to the middle of a pond
  • Moving a VW Beetle into Eric Schmidt's office
These were engineering feats!
Today, companies are continuing the trend of running April Fool's pranks. I have included three such that appeared today:

  • Google, quite elaborately, created a video and collateral around "Gmail motion" - where they show how to use visual cues to interact with gmail. The video will surely draw a smile - even if it seems silly. I must say that the people in the video pulled off maintaining a serious tone.

  • LinkedIn's prank was quite simple - where they suggested Sherlock Holmes and Groucho Marx as possible connections. BTW: You can view an enlarged image by simply clicking on the image on the right.

  • ShopSavvy took a dig at (the photosharing app) Color - who recently announced that they raised a round of $41m! Quite honestly, I sensed a tinge of jealousy in this prank.

I am sure there were other pranks unleashed today. If you know of any, post it as a comment.