April Fool’s

by Eszter Hargittai on April 1, 2006

In 2002, Google brought us PigeonRank.

Today, Ask brings us RhymeRank. Check out the results for Crooked Timber (right-hand side of the screen) or try the service on your favorite search term. [UPDATE 4/2/06: As of April 2nd this is no longer available.]

Yahoo! went a bit too geeky on this judging from reactions to my various past posts by making their April Fool’s all about Web 2.0 and calling it “All Your Web 2.0 Are Belong To Us”. After all, if you don’t know what Web 2.0 is then you’re certainly not going to find that post amusing. In any case, it’s just a blog post on their Search Blog, it’s not as though they introduced a whole new service.

What other April Fool’s have you come across today? No, they do not have to be search related.

{ 16 comments }

1

chuk 04.01.06 at 10:55 am

2

marcel 04.01.06 at 11:32 am

Ezter – I am glad to see Crooked Timber taking an implicit stance in this post on what is arguably the most pressing issue of the day: The War on April Fool’s Day. I have been unable to get any other blog to take a position, one way or the other. Even the pastafarians, it seems, could carve a better backbone for themselves from a plate of overcooked spaghetti.

3

Doormat 04.01.06 at 11:52 am

For those with an interest in computer games, this is priceless.

4

Eszter 04.01.06 at 12:50 pm

Chuk – I mentioned that in my other post this morning, but if we’re going to be systematic, it does make sense to list it here as well.

5

L 04.01.06 at 12:51 pm

Crooked timber is too high brow to engage in their own April fool’s joke, of course.

6

foo 04.01.06 at 12:52 pm

tia and ogged are sekritely dating. it’s hilarious.

[link added – E.]

7

Tim Worstall 04.01.06 at 12:58 pm

The Groan reran part of it’s San Seriffe piece and also has a great one of Chris Martin recording a song for the Tory party.

The rest of it in the UK papers seemed rather tame.

8

Mark B. 04.01.06 at 1:23 pm

*Apple has introduced a new corporate logo in honour of their 30th birthday.*

See here and here.

9

Mr. Bill 04.01.06 at 2:03 pm

Pageoneq.com : “Congressman Barney Frank” (first openly gay member of Congress)”Resigns to take of Human Rights commission”..Click on and it’s April Fools.. And a bit of sophistocated humor at The San Diego Union Tribune: http://tinyurl.com/fbh36

Let’s just say that Congressional Canidate Kagoolian, the guy who posted pics of an Istanbul Suburb as Baghdad to show how swimmingly things are going in Iraq dispite a hateful press, gets another shellacking…

10

Kelly 04.01.06 at 2:31 pm

Let’s see… I woke up this morning to the news that Mike Doughty is running for New York State Senate, which was mildly surprising, to say the least. And while it was an odd email, it wasn’t entirely out of tone with Doughty’s other oddness, so I just sort of shrugged…

…and then read about Joss Whedon casting Kate Beckinsale as Wonder Woman. And got my head out of thesishell long enough to think about the date and realize it’s April 1st. ;)

11

Ralph Luker 04.01.06 at 2:57 pm

How about Adam Kotsko‘s dropping his theological studies at Chicago Theological Seminary and entering the Business School at the University of Chicago!

12

Jack 04.01.06 at 3:21 pm

Radio 4 is replacing its theme tune with a European medley including Sibelius and the theme from Van Der Valk.

13

Molly Black 04.01.06 at 3:29 pm

From The Ferrett:

“And speaking of videogames, “Yendi” turned me on to this awesome mushroom-growing kit.”

14

Richard Dawkins 04.01.06 at 7:21 pm

Don’t miss “Selfish Minds.”

15

Gary Farber 04.01.06 at 11:23 pm

Here are a couple of the obvious sky-fi related. Watching some of the dimmer bulbs on the right splutter is more amusing, though.

16

joejoejoe 04.05.06 at 5:55 am

I’m late to this but WordPress and Textpattern merged to form, “the greatest CMSMS ever, WordPattern.”

It’s a pretty involved joke with it’s own site, http://wordpattern.org/, and quite a bit of supporting shenanigans. Their attention to detail comes through even in their nonsense.

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