Around the internet on Monday different websites celebrated April Fools Day by tricking their users with fake new features. These ranged from placing a marker in every song on Soundcloud to tell users where the “drop” was, to creating a search engine for scents. Keep reading to find out more about the wacky pranks websites pulled.
Google Nose
Google launched a search engine that supposedly had the ability to return any smell the user searched and project it onto the screen. It would then ask the user to smell the screen. Unfortunately, anyone gullible enough to try would just get a nose-full of their monitor. Try it here:
http://www.google.com/landing/nose/
Soundcloud Dropometer
Music website Soundcloud implemented a feature that put a big obnoxious arrow in most of the songs on the website that would point to where a computer algorithm thought the drop was. This is a satirical poke at how people who listen to dubstep songs on Soundcloud always comment obnoxiously at the end of a buildup, which is a redundant and pointless practice. Read about it here:
https://blog.soundcloud.com/2013/04/01/dropometer/
Reddit Wars
Popular time-wasting utility reddit.com divided their user base between two teams, orangered and periwinkle. This was based off of the popular game (or at least popular on r/gaming) Team Fortress 2. Users who submitted links on April 1st had their link points added to the total of their team, creating a competitive environment. However many users complained about this, claiming it wasn’t that fun and it was just another thing to get people to focus on earning meaningless internet points.