April Fools Prank Watch

And so begins our slow descent into April Fools Day madness. I'll be keeping tab on the sites that are posting April Fools pranks all day, so check back often. Also, feel free to contribute if you see something that isn't on the list yet.

• Google

  

  Humbled by Topeka's decision to temporarily rename itself as "Google", the website returned the favor by taking up the city's former moniker.

• Urlesque

  

  Urlesque has handed the reigns over to everyone's favorite nerd, Steve Urkel, who has re-branded the site as "Urkelesque".

• ThinkGeek

  

  ThinkGeek has started rolling out their annual April Fools day "too-good-to-be-true" geek gift collection, starting with this iPad arcade accessory.

• Improv Everywhere

  Improv Everywhere joined in on the April Fools Day fun by pulling their most risque stunt to date, The "No Underwear Subway Ride."

• Hipster Runoff

  

  Hipster Runoff's Alt Report ran a story this morning about Pitchfork's unprecedented review of MGMT's new album, giving it a perfect 10.

• Funny Or Die

  Funny Or Die has become "Bieber Or Die" today, featuring videos of the actual Justin Bieber reenacting some iconic memes from the past.

• TechCrunch

  

  TechCrunch posted an article late last night about Google's intention to switch to nuclear power.

• YouTube

  

  YouTube introduced a new bandwidth-saving service today that let's you watch videos down-converted to basic text.

• Starbucks

  

  Starbucks introduced two new sizes today: The 128 oz "Plenta" and the 2 oz "Micra".

• Reddit

  

  Reddit granted all it's users admin status for the day, allowing infinite upvotes for everyone.

• College Humor

  

  College Humor has been taken offline due to "un-American sentiment."

• Cnet UK

  

  Cnet UK ran a story this morning from Apple admitting that the iPad was all just one big joke.

• Wikipedia

  

  Today's featured article on Wikipedia's front page is all about the traditional western practice of "wife selling."

• Hoot Suite

  

  The popular online Twitter client Hoot Suite announced this morning that they were switching to a fully-3D dashboard.

• Kodak

  

  Kodak announced a new product this morning, Aromatography, which would apply the scent of whatever you were photographing to the picture as well.

• Blizzard

  

  Blizzard announced their new line-up of mobile games due out this spring, including "Blackthorne 2: Thorne Harder" and "Queen's Quest"

• Google UK

  

  Google UK plans to develop an app for Android phones that will translate Animal sounds into speech.

• 4Chan

  

  4Chan added a new feature that lets you post your crude content to Facebook as well.

• Eater NY

  

  Popular NYC food blog Eater NY posted as article this morning about In-N-Out's new NYC franchise location.

• CNet UK

  

  Another one from Cnet UK, this time a story about a man claiming to be from the future being arrested at CERN.

• Guardian.co.uk

  

  The Guardian ran this story about the Labour party's edgy new campaign, which essentially amounts to candidate Gordon Brown calling out David Cameron for a fist fight.

• Shell Vacation Hospitality

  Shell Vacations is promoting their new service that lets guests book rooms that are designed to be easier on left-handed patrons.

• AOL Radio

  

  AOL Radio's blog posted a number of unreleased Beatles tracks today.

• xkcd

  

  xkcd has become unixkcd today, turning the whole site into a Unix command prompt.

• Deviant Art

  

  Deviant Art replaced all it's users profile icons with Twilight and Lady Gaga icons.

• IvyGate

  

  IvyGate got exclusive word today that two new schools were up for induction into the Ivy League.

• Film School Rejects

  

  Film School Rejects took a time machine back to April 1st, 1980.

• Yelp

  

  Yelp sent out a casting call looking for contestants for it's new reality show, based on the review site.

• The Pirate Bay

  

  Popular torrent search site, The Pirate Bay, has reverted to "retro style."

• The PETA files

  

  The PETA blog ran an story about a French geneticists attempt to make rats cuter by splicing their DNA with rabbit DNA.

• Amazon Kindle

  

  Amazon announced they'd be releasing a Kindle version of the Harry Potter series written entirely in runic characters.

• Let Me Google That For You

  

  Following Google's lead, Let Me Google That For You had now become Let Me Topeka That For You.

• LSU Sports

  

  LSU announced they'd be installing new purple turf for their Tigers to be play on.

• Screen Junkies

  

  Screen Junkies posted about a new Robocop movie directed by Darren Aronofsky, in which Avatar's Sam Worthington is set to star.

• Huffington Post

  

  Not so much a prank as it is a rock solid April Fools Day pun.

• The Leaky Cauldron

  

  The popular Harry Potter fan site has become a Glee fan site today.

• Google Voice

  

  Google Voice recognized that people felt a certain nostalgia for the way voicemail used to be, so they implemented changes today to make their service a little more old school.

• GMail

  

  GMail is experiencing a temporary vowel outage.

• Chat Roulette

  

  Chat Roulette's new service, Wed Roulette, helps you find a partner who is looking to get engaged RIGHT NOW.

• Babeland

  

  Popular adult toy website babeland is offering a new chocolate rabbit vibrator just in time for Easter.

• Battle.net

  

  Battle.net introduced a new service where you could be matched up with the love of your life to go out and pwn some n00bs with.

• JibJab Roulette

  

  JibJab launches a Chat Roulette variant that connects you with people in their birthday suits.

• Google Reader

  

  Google is introducing a new program to help incentivize using their RSS reader.

• Cute Overload

  

  CuteOverload is lousy with Rick Astley today.

• Austin Chronicle

  

  The Austin Chronicle ran a story about the University of Texas' intention to kill their athletics program.

• The Economist

  

  The Economist ran a very in-depth article about Russia's involvement in the lucrative olive oil industry.

• Google New Zealand

  

  Google New Zealand is timing their search results with some less than standard timing systems.

• Google Books

  

  Google Books implemented a new feature that lets you read in 3D. (3D is the "it" joke this April Fools.)

• The Guild

  In the tradition of Muppet Babies, the web series "The Guild" released an episode portraying the groups as babies.

• Wil Wheton's Twitter

  

  Wil Wheton divulged some details about a top-secret Star Trek reunion.

• Weather Underground

  

  The Weather Underground ran a story about how global warming unearthed an entire race of warrior merman and mermaids in the arctic.

• Flickr

  

  The Flickrpad is Flickr's answer to the Apple iPad.

• Coldplay

  

  The band Coldplay released details about their new branded cologne. They even added it to their merch site.

• Glamour

  

  Glamour has become "Glamour Pets" for the day.

• WikiTravel

  

  WikiTrips' featured destination today is Mordor.

• Ben & Jerry's

  

  Ben & Jerry released a revolutionary new way to experience ice cream called "ice screen."

• Hulu

  

  Hulu "accidentally" leaked a confidential video from our alien overlords.

• Google Docs

  

  Google Docs is going to start letting users store anything. Yes, anything.

• RyanSeacrest.com

  

  The Bronx Zoo Cobra's identity is still a mystery, maybe because it's too busy serving as webmaster of RyanSeacrest.com to reveal itself.