Background

On April 1st, 2016, various websites and online services released gag videos, products and features in honor of April Fools' Day.

Notable Developments

Google

On March 31st, Google released a new button on Gmail titled “Mic Drop,” which would reply to an email with an animated GIF of a Minion, a recurring character in the Despicable Me_ film franchise, dropping a mic when pressed. After receiving many reports^[2] from users who accidentally hit the button instead of “Send,” Google removed the prank feature.^[1] Also on March 31st, the Official Gmail Blog^[3] unveiled a new “Smart Reply” feature, which suggests various emojis to send in place of “boring text replies.”

Additionally, promotional videos for Google's Cardboard Plastic “actual reality” device (shown below, top, left), a parody of virtual reality devices, the “realBooks” product (shown below, top, right), the self-driving bike (shown below, bottom, left) and the Google Photos emoji search (shown below, bottom, right) were released on YouTube.

On April 1st, Google Maps unveiled Groovy Maps, featuring the Google Maps mascot Pegman dressed in 1970’s disco-themed apparel (shown below).

The same day, YouTube unveiled its the “SnoopaVision” feature for select videos, allowing users to view 360 degree videos of rapper Snoop Dogg watching popular YouTube videos in a movie theater (shown below).

Duolingo Pillow

The language learning platform Duolingo^[5] posted ads for a new pillow device that helps people learn languages while they sleep (shown below).

Mark Zuckerberg for H&M

The clothing retailer H&M unveiled a prank clothing line by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (shown below).

McDonald's MmmBox

The fast food chain restaurant company McDonald’s launched a promotional website for a fake “MmmBox”^[7] monthly subscription service for deliveries of lunch boxes for various lifestyles, including “The Artisan,” “The Ribster” and “The Minimalist” (shown below).

Grüber

The food delivery website GrubHub^[4] unveiled the ride-share service Grüber, which allows people to “hitch rides with Grubhub’s existing delivery drivers” as a parody of the on-demand taxi service Uber.

Cornhub

The adult entertainment website PornHub changed the site's homepage to "CornHub," featuring various videos of corn being "shucked," "plowed" and "popped."

4chan Google+

The imageboard 4chan was redesigned to appear as if it were the social networking site Google+, assigning random names to each anonymous user.

Hearthstone: The MMO

The video game studio Blizzard posted a video for a new "epic game from Blizzard Entertainment" based on the World of Warcraft-inspired online game card Hearthstone.

Reddit's Robin

Reddit unveiled a new page containing a single button with a red robin, while takes users to a chatroom upon being clicked where they can vote to either "Abandon," "Stay" or "Grow" (shown below).^[8]

External References