April Fool’s jokes abounded on the Internet. One much ballyhooed joke was Opera Software’s press release of their “Opera SoundWave,” which they claimed was “a platform-independent speech solution for short- and medium-range interpersonal communication,” and which required no special equipment. In fact you could test it just by standing near someone and asking “Is today April Fool’s Day?”
Opera Soundwave was, in other words, human speech.
A couple of other April Fool’s jokes which relied on either the Internet, or familiarity with things Internetly, included the announcement of “Google Gulp” (a high-tech fruit drink requiring what amounted to inside invitations), Google launching a satellite, and Google announcing infinite storage for its Gmail service (are you detecting a theme here?) There were also non-Google-related April Fool’s jokes, including the news of a man who sold his baby to pay for his gadget-fix.
In our house we opt for the somewhat more mundane April Fool’s jokes, such as setting the clock forward two days early (when applicable) or three hours ahead.
This year we’ve had some great April Fool’s website submitted to us! For example:
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[Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead]
[Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead]
[Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead]
[Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead]
So, dear gentle readers, what was your best April Fool’s joke this year, either as joker or jokee, Internet-based or otherwise?
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my favorite forums had all the moderators demoted for a day and to make it more intense it closed after. it reopened but i got scared for quite a while.
Not exactly an oinline joke, but a funny AFD gag that is documented at www.ColdCallComedy.com
PC Magazine had a detailed story about viruses spreading from computer to human to computer via nanobots. Very entertaining.
Online retailer COMPUTER GEEKS sent out a full page advert (quite elaborate) to it’s mailing list customers for a Round LCD Monitor, extremely well-done AFD Joke, my personal favorite. WELL DONE GEEKS!
DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM APRIL 1st @ 11:59 pm UNTIL 12:01am APRIL 3rd.
*** Attention ***
It’s that time again! As many of you know, each year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow it to be cleaned. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead email and inactive ftp, www and gopher sites, allows for a better-working and faster Internet.
This year, the cleaning process will take place from 23:59 pm (GMT) on April 1st until 00:01 am (GMT) on April 3rd. During that 24-hour period, five powerful Internet-crawling robots situated around the world will search the Internet and delete any data that they find.
In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you do the following:
Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet connections.
Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet.
Disconnect all disks and hard drives from any connections to the Internet.
Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way.
We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconveniences will be more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic flotsam and jetsam.
We thank you for your cooperation.
Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff
Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sysops and others: Since the last Internet cleaning, the number of Internet users has grown dramatically. Please assist us in alerting the public of the upcoming Internet cleaning by posting this message where your users will be able to read it.
Please pass this message on to other sysops and Internet users as well.
P.S. APRIL FOOLS!