Hyperx
04-01-06, 02:44 PM
List of the April Fools Jokes for 2006
Wikipedia has a list of all of the big pranks that have happened. The list is growing fast, enjoy the hilarity.
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April Fools hoaxes in 2006
Hoaxes for this year include:
Contents
* 1 April Fools hoaxes in 2006
o 1.1 On the Internet
+ 1.1.1 Web 2.0 pranks
o 1.2 On television
o 1.3 On the radio
o 1.4 In newspapers and magazines
o 1.5 Unverifiable or Misinterpreted
* 2 External links
[edit]
On the Internet
* http://www.ClevelandBrew.com claims access is denied for a user's IP address, and suggests they call the company vice president's (real) personal mobile phone number for assistance.
* AOL UK announces a new reality show, where celebrities will operate on members of the public. This entertainment news item seems to be in AOL members-only pages. The link for members of the public to apply to be operated on goes to April Fools hoax on Google.
* albion arks,said that they had shut down the site and would make an "Arctic monkeys" fan site insted of the Libertines one.
* BBC News Online reports that "Airlines ban 'foul' Swedish fish". Includes a statement by the leader of the non-existant "Swedish Surstr?mming Academy".
* Blizzard Entertainment announced that the new Alliance race for their upcoming World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will be Wisps. They possess the radical ability to detonate themselves in order to strengthen their fellow players or weaken enemies. Due to the fact that the player would be permanently dead after doing this, many players claim that this is a joke, considering the news was released on March 31 - the day before April Fool's Day.
* Chicago-based furniture retailer Walter E. Smithe announced on their website (at http://www.smithe.com/field.htm) that they had signed an agreement with the Chicago Cubs to construct a dome over Wrigley Field, and to rename the park Walter E. Smithe Field.
* Conspiracy's website was replaced with Farbrausch's.
* The Cure for Information Overload
* DivX Head Up Display (XHUD), an in-car head up display for projecting DivX video on your front windshield.
* FictionAlley.Org announced a merger with Google, Microsoft, AOL, Coca Cola, The Walt Disney Company, American Airlines, Wal Mart, Lush, Yahoo, Nike, and Dan radcliffe, to better supply the consumerist needs of all people everywhere.
* Furcadia changed its main maps to make everything upside down, and very, very badly drawn. This was announced as an upgrade to 24-bit graphics.
* GameSpot, reports on Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming MMO World of Starcraft and the Top 10 Final Fantasy Games of all time.
* Hak.5, an IPTV show, announces that they have been bought out by G4, and that the show is shifting to a video-game focus.
* IceBB, a small PHP message board system, was renamed JarJar. [1]
* Ikonboard.com added a link to the AdminCP on its community forums which took users to http://forums.ikonboard.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=Admin
* Invisionfree's support forum has placed up a pink skin, and an administrator under the name of "Seth" made a duplicate username, in hopes of scaring the forum members into thinking there will be a hacking attack.
* DS Fanboy, a blog focusing on the Nintendo DS from Joystiq, posts that Nintendo has announced that the upcoming DS game, New Super Mario Bros., will only run on the Nintendo DS Lite.
* The Floating Isle of Sanopia announced that the 2 lead developers had both died in a horrible car accident involving a school bus full of young children. The HTML source code stated a URL where players could submit their username and get a free "April Fools" gift for finding their easter egg. Note: they replaced the gift page due to high traffic.
* Kingdom of Loathing index page redirects to a fake cybersquatting page - clicking any of the links returns to the game. Many of the "ultra-rare" adventures happen frequently, but fail to drop the ultra-rare item, with a fake MySQL error message.
* ModTheSims2, a popular Sims 2 fansite, renamed itself to ModYourLlama2.com, had multiple Llama related uploads and changed the theme.
* Moodle announced that they would be converting the code for their entire Open Source Learning Management System from PHP to .NET code before April 1, 2007.
* MSDN: Coding4Fun Day Special
* MUME [2], Multi-Users in Middle Earth, the Tolkien themed MUD shifted in a Star Wars parallel universe.
* Neopets pretended to add a Neopoint tax that charged you for each page you visited called 'NeoCharge'.
* NoHomers.net played a variety of pranks on its visitors, including changing the identity of people who made posts and reuploading the 2002 index page.
* OpenOffice.org's website has a news story about a takeover of the open-source office suite by Microsoft. The link to the full story goes to a hoax page.
* Opera Software launches an online photo library called Opera Models, an alternative to the polished style of existing photo libraries. [3]
* Slashdot incorporated a pink "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" theme at 00:00 UTC. This girlish theme is in stark contrast for a techie website believed to be mostly frequented by male nerds. A "Special Birthday Report" [4] about Jeff "Hemos" Bates emerged in the first minutes of the day. A link to Thinkgeek's wireless extension cords has also been posted. The presence of humor on Slashdot has yet to be confirmed.
* Slim Devices releases the K.R.O.N.O.S
* Technorati's top searches include Microsoft Bob, Apple Newton, PointCast, HyperCard, and other outdated technologies.
* The Economist announced that GeneDupe is working on genetically engineering such mythical creatures as dragons, unicorns, and gryphons.
* Uncyclopedia, claims to have been bought by Apple Computer in a "corporate takeover". [5]
* Wayne Hussey from The Mission UK confirms he will rejoin The Sisters of Mercy as guitarist.
* Whirlpool, an Australian broadband news site, announced that Telstra will be rolling out its ADSL2+ service with useful bandwidth limited 2Mbit while "the remaining ADSL2+ bandwidth will be reserved for Telstra branded services such as Foxtel Digital via streaming set-top box, BigPond Movies, and an as-yet unnamed consumer VoIP product targeting consumers interested in a second phone line." [6]
* YTMND has redone their website to resemble Ebaumsworld.com stating that the latter had purchased the former, and made a 10 second redirection to ebaumsworld forums.
* 2600 adopted a Google-like site layout.
* Astronomy Picture of the day sing the new camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to confirm that the Moon is made of green cheese. The telling clue was the resolution of a marked date after which the Moon may go bad.
* Ars Technica announces they have a golden-master version of Duke Nukem Forever.
* johnstoblog is reporting on the crisis of lack of original level designs, since all the good ones have been discovered already.
* Channel 9 Mike Hall - Network Enabled Refrigeration Device (and pranks at Microsoft)
* A livejournal Group Is reporting that Christopher Walken is dead.
* Dr McNinja, a webcomic, produced a comic in which it shows the artists stating that they'd stop making the comic, so as to avoid being killed by ninjas, a few days before April 1st, claiming that there'd be some new news about their stopping the comic on Saturday, April 1st. On April 1st an April Fools message was placed in the news section of the site.
* GBATemp, a handheld ROM news site, announced the Japanese release of New Super Mario Bros.
* Google Operating System Blog introduces Google Browser, a fast, versatile and secure text browser for the Internet. Google Browser is free, already out of beta, and the installer has only 1.68 MB.
* The PWN Shop LAN shut down by Hillary Clinton for promoting violent video games.
* GunZonline states: "We've found a serious problem on game service today. And you cannot play GunZ. We expect that it will take few days to fix the problem. Sorry for your convenience."
* KILLDEAD.ORG has announced that it will regularly release podcasts.
* DJYSRV A blog mostly about the Opera browser. claims that dolphins are browsing the internet with Opera Mini
* Mythic Entertainment (the makers of Dark Age of Camelot) tips their hat to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Instead of getting a horse to ride when you wish to travel the realms, you are now placed on the shoulders of a large person, who runs to your destination, while clapping coconuts together. Additionally, if you go to fight an epic monster like a dragon, or the ruler of the underworld, you may be underwhelmed at their size. On the servers dedicated to roleplaying, many of the NPCs have a manner of speech that is quite unpopular with the residents.
* Newgrounds.com annouced that they have acquired I-Mockery.com. The actual I-Mockery homepage was styled to look Newgrounds-branded.
* Paper Programs, a small open source development group was bought up by Microsoft
* Pkmn.Net reported that the elusive Celebi could be caught in Pok?mon Emerald. In addition, anyone typing 'Pok?mon' in the forums would have it come out as 'Digimon', among many other things.
* Rate Your Music changed its messageboards to cover only inane topics such as "Beatles vs. Rolling Stones," and changed all album cover images.
* Starcraft Revolution, which is a mod for Warcraft 3, introduces the hybrids race, represented by a creature that combines purity of essence and purity of form: Chuck Norris.
* Fetish Cycles is bought out by Quality Bike Products, introduce the "Snuff" frame. [7]
* Pokemon Emerald MA has had several forum changes, including: Changing Member titles(ex. Members=Fuzzy Wuzzy Bunny) and putting up a pink skin with the phrase "OMG Ponies!" included in the banner.
* Coming Round Springfield message board changes from The Simpsons to Star Wars, in the shape of Coming Round Coruscant.
* TeeVeePedia is a Wikipedia parody from TeeVee.org -- this is their 10th annual April Fool's Day site!
* Textfiles.com adopts a Google like layout, with a link explaining that they joined up with Google.
* Thatsjustnotright.com changed its forum back to the poo brown of its glory days, rid itself of the current mods, banned many contributors, and brought back some members who were previously banned, giving them mod powers
* THCNET appears to have been shut down by the MPA and german GVU. Oh no!
* the cosmotron Changed it's contents to match that of cosmotron.
* TVEps is reporting that Isaac 'Chef' Hayes not leaving southpark after all. He comes clean that it was a publicity stunt.
* Vast.com states: "Vast.com has launched a new category, Credit Card search Our "deep" crawler now recognizes and extracts credit card numbers accidentally posted all across the web, and enables you to shop with them. What's the business model, indeed!"
* 22Pixels reports on a new Adobe Photoshop CS2.5, the download leads to the old Random Burper.
* 4chan claims that their editor called moot has been eaten by a shark
* Amakna Square, a fantsite for the Flash-based game Dofus, changed its name and banner to Astrub Zaap (an in-game location where free players often hawk their overpriced wares), and its motto to "Where noobs flutter and beg..."
* ActiveWin.com has posted 6 exclusive screenshots of an early Alpha version of Windows IE 8.0, codename "Teahupoo".
* Airliners.net changed their colors saying, "With over 98% male users, Airliners.net needs to take major action to attract more female visitors."
* Animal Crossing Ahead announced that Nintendo and Microsoft were developing "Animal Crossing 360" for the Xbox 360, slated to be released later this year.
* AntiComics launches as an April Fools parody of webcomic critic sites such as Websnark and Fleen.
* Arolos Weyr and Dark Fort Weyr announce that they will be becoming commercial, charging players for such things as the ability to Hear Inanimate Objects and have black dragons.
* BattleRealms.us turned into a "Donkey Singing" along with a color scheme change that is far different from the default red and black that they use.
* Blizzard Entertainment has announced a new company-owned restaurant chain called BurgerCraft, in which you can order Yamato Burgers, Zealot Fries, and much more. You can also gain Hunger Points to reach the rank of Grand Gourmand and access the Secret Cow Level, the VIP lounge. While the press release is dated April 1, the annoucement on the main page is dated March 31.
* Branchez-Vous reporting that Quebec's Prime Minister is offering free iPods to the first 1000 people who ask for one on his website.
* Bullshido.net posts news story about the owner selling the site for "$560,381, 40,000 shares of Century Martial Arts, two Wing Chun dummies, and a lifetime subscription to Black Belt Magazine" and changes the site to reflect match the layout of it's "new owner's" site.
* CollegeHumor.com fakes what looks like an overseas webpage. The original is available from a link in the new page.
* The Hungarian Demoscene Portal retrograded back to it's 2001 layout. (The up-to-date site was still available.)
* DistroWatch releases review about new "Windows Hasta La Vista"
* DOMAI (NSFW) substitutes text descriptions for pix.
* Dotcomr has announced that they will be changing names back to their previous names and were at one time considering bologna sandwich.
* eBaum's World - Created multiple fake government regulation sites involving the "Internet Regulations and Legislation Bureau"; showed censored versions of several of their media to get the point across. [8]
* Esctoday.com, a website covering the Eurovision Song Contest, reports that from 2007, the competition will be open to 55 countries, with five simultaneous semi-finals being held across Europe to determine which countries qualify for the final competition. This story actually leaked out on March 31 2006, due to the need to release press releases on the day before publication.
* Fark.com Posts articles about curry, and claims Duke University is one of the "best places in the world"
* FidoFinder.com Lost dog web site lists a $1,000,000 reward for Paris Hilton's lost dog.
* Firestream, a Christian Heavy Metal Community, announced that it was moving from heavy metal music to Southern Gospel.
* Motley Fool, an investment site is filing a class-action lawsuit against the US government.
* fxguide fxguide features the making of for a black on white super
* GameDrift.com states: "Miami attorney Jack Thompson has won the case involving a badly executed Walmart robbery against Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto Series. Rockstar was not involved in the process."
* GameFAQs shows a "You can cheat, but you can't hide" main page. In addition, the poll on the real main page is intentionally nonsensical, including choices such as "Snakes on a Plane" and "O RLY? YA RLY!" (all have been fads of the LUE forum). The Daily Grind forum was resurrected, the letter "e" is banned on the controversial LUE forum and three new secret boards have been created.
* Game Maker Games, an archive for games made with Game Maker, posted four reviews of clown games, all of which recieved unusually high scores.
* Gamer Joe posted an update featuring the main character in an alternate fanfic universe
* GameStay, reports that Microsoft to solve backward compatibility and save game issues, releases the Xbox into Xbox 360 Connection Kit code-named Mea Culpa.
* getDigital This shop offers a perfect wardriver stand-alone tool with functions like cracking WEP-keys and starting a VoIP call over an unsecured WLAN.
* Givemebeats.com - The owner of the website, Mardix, told the producers on the website that he's filing a legal complaint against them, and that he's going to sell everybody's beat so he doesn't go to jail. This created a panic on the website. People wanted to remove their beats, but their account was locked, making them impossible to make any changes. But later on that day, a new version is released.
* God Mode, a webcomic about the staff of a game news website, turned its homepage into the fictional "God Mode Online" website within the comic and featured a Street Fighter 4 news hoax.
* golemtemplates.com, Template web page switches their layout to display terrible web designs and stock photos no one would want.
* GTA-SanAndreas.com released a fake forum staff board to the public, claiming the forum software had glitched after one of the administrators fiddled with some settings.
* Gutterzombie, Comic Arts forum announces it has gone pay.
* Homestar Runner has most of the website upside-down.
* Homeworking.com the forum and advice site for homeworkers, has announced that a group of Asian Leicestershire Millionaires (Leicestershire Immigrant People's Association) are giving away the price of joining an MLM to encourage a minimum number of immigrants to be represented in this field - the new minimum to be known as the LIPA Floor, here.
* Homeworking.com the forum and advice site for homeworkers, has announced that email copies of posts made to the forum may be slow to arrive today, due to the internet being cleaned, here.
* How Stuff Works Has two articles, one on animated tattoos and one on hydro-ordnance.
* Homestar Runner Wiki retrograded back from MediaWiki to WikkiTikkiTavi.
* ibiblio Petitions W3C for introduction of BLiNG tag to the XHTML standard; heralds the dawn of Web 2.1 by adding 'bling' to the Web
* iLounge adopts subscription model, and establishes hourly Q&A fee.
* IWOOT, a UK gadget site, offers for sale a tiny device that downloads your brain's memory to a 2GB USB Flash Drive.
* Londinivm.com, an online rpg game announces the removal of major game features, and the addition of features todo with the game, 'Cricket'.
* The Brotherhood of Britannia announced its reformat into a One Tree Hill fansite.
* Matt Cutts announces he leaves Google to work at Yahoo (and Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny announces the reverse).
* MacHall, a Popular Webcomic, has its main character discover his hidden homosexual orientation
* Mobile Gazette announces plans by the British government to close down the country's GSM networks for re-use with a top secret citizen surveillance program.
* The Mod Archive, a popular source of computer music announced a shutdown after 10 years on the scene.
* Multiplay UK, A gaming community with the latest news "NASA Picks Top Five Games For Archive" claiming 5 games will be sent on a journey in to the unknown, hopefully reaching other life to let the aliens see what human life is like.
* Newsforge has announced that Linus Torvalds and the OSDL have formed the world's first Open Source Dress for Success University (OSDSU).
* OCAU, a hardware enthusiast site, announced plans to remove popular forums and delete all forum accounts less than two years old, in an attempt to return to "the Good Old Days".
* Philmug the Philippines Macintosh User Group has become the Philippines Microsoft User Group due to Dvorak's "apple dumping OSX for windows" article
* PlanetHalfLife.com - Large Half-Life news site turns pink.
* Revolution Report, published an article claiming that the final name of Nintendo's new console had been released. [9]
* The Salvation Army in the UK unveils plans to supercede charity wristbands with charity beards in an 'innovative Wear Your Beard To Work Day', illustrated with some attractive bearded ladies!
* SectionZ claims in an email to subscribers that due to a lawsuit, the underground electronic music website will go offline forever. A link in the email forwards users to a YTMND page stating it was an April Fools Joke.
* Serebii.net's banner has been changed to a Super Princess Peach, Mario one.
* Supergamez, a Hungarian news portal states, that P2P networks will be legalized in Hungary.
* Sideshow Collectables announces 6 inch Final Battle Darth Maul figure.
* SitePoint published an article giving advice on how to build your own successful Web 2.0 application. The article satirizes the recent eBook, Getting Real published by the poster-child of Web 2.0 businesses, 37signals, and among its suggestions advises readers to "set it up and sell it off -- implementation is for losers!" They also announced they would be charging for posts to their General Chat forum, which angered a number of regular visitors.
* BMW UK BMW announces the new "slow cameras gizmo".
* Starslip Crisis, a sci-fi webcomic, has mirror-imaged its front page with all links still functional.
* StarWars.com made an announcement on its main page linking to an article explaining that characters from the Willow universe had been inserted into the official Star Wars canon.[10]
* Svencoop.com, a domain website for Half-Life based mod Sven Co-op, has been taken over by "Sven's Discount Co-operative," an online shopping store, which claims to offer discounted products from TVs and DVD players to toys, clothing and kitchenware.
* TermiSoc, the University of Plymouth's Networking Society has reported that, due to a large bursary, they are switching their 3 Linux servers over to Windows Server 2003.
* The Celeb Forum, a celebrity forum, announced that it was adding naked male celebrity boards to it's forum - shocking many members. The forum, also pranked people into believing one its moderators was an intelligent grown-up, when he was, in fact, Rowlesy.
* TheGTAPlace.com fakes Grand Theft Auto: "Chicago" [11] announcement. Whois lookup in the domain reveals "APRIL.GTACHICAGO.COM" and "FOOLS.GTACHICAGO.COM".
* The Register announces that China is buying Google
* The Register also announces that the US Department of Justice and the office of the White House Counsel are preparing a draft document laying out the President's wartime authority to remain in office past 2008
* The Wotch, a Webcomic, announced 2 days earlier that they were starting a new subcomic based on the popular character Jason Grey. Fans of the comic got very excited. The day the first comic was posted, April 1, eager Wotchers found this.
* ticalc.org and Detached Solutions have changed their main pages to look like they were taken by domain name squatters.
* Tokyo Toshokan has been shut down by the United States Supreme Court (A white link, effectively blending in with the background, reveals the joke.).
* Tomorrow.SG, a popular Singapore blog bulletin, posted plans to charge readers SGD$5.55 per month based on a subscription, due to an "unexpected growth in both audience and traffic".
* Tron Sector announced a fake Tron sequel, Tron: No More Goofing Around.
* UbuntuStudio, a wiki for using Ubuntu Linux for a digital music studio, redirects to FruityLoops.com, a Windows application.
* RaGEZONE admin has been arrested for releasing copyright MMORPG server files.
* Ufck Forums was overtaken by Kern and his man-love was spread everywhere
* Undeadly.org posts a link to (OpenBSD Founder) Theo DeRaadt's livejournal where he complains about the lack of beer funds and eventually announces suspension of OpenBSD development because he needs to get a 9 to 5 job.
* United Bimmer - BMW forums overrun with pink and non-tasteful ricer modding.
* Urban Dead, an online game, tells you that you got bitten by "A vampire" who "drained 1 pint of blood" since last turn, or heard "A Werewolf" howling. Clicking the link to either profile shows a page that displays the message "April Fools!"
* Woot.com sold a $19.99 "MAG KleerDrain Instant Drain Opener", and the "I want one!" button was modified to follow the user's cursor, disallowing them from doing anything on the site other than buying the product. Also Self-Declared as the '06 Worst Woot Candidate.
* WRANKmusic - instead of the normal music news site, points to a Fraggle Rock fan club web site last edited in 1999.
* Yahoo! buys all the Web 2.0 companies in existence.
* Y-hosting's Yaoi Gallery has been claimed by deviantART, and will now feature yuri and heterosexual art.
* Zombie Squad turned into "Happy Team" for April fool's day.
* Aspira Media releases the new W3C CSS specifications update. [12]
* Chicago-based furniture retailer Walter E. Smithe announced on their website (at http://www.smithe.com/field.htm) that they had signed an agreement with the Chicago Cubs to construct a dome over Wrigley Field, and to rename the park Walter E. Smithe Field.
* FIFA World Cup time delay, hoax site http://www.vvorldcup.com setup by blogger at http://www.iminstant.com
* Metroid and TThomaso, moderators of the VX Flash Forums, announced the Deletion of the popular General Discussion forums citing spam as the reason for their closure.
* Rui Carmo, of The Tao of Mac fame, is ditching OS X for Linux.
* StarTrek.com claims to have an exclusive preview of a new version of the website, but the link goes to a cheaply made 90s webpage about Star Trek, flashing graphics and all. [13]
* The amaroK music player announces a 2.0 release with a fanciful list of features including tabbed playlists and an amaroK music store. [14]
* The Drupal CMS announced that the program is going to be rewritten in Ook!. [15]
* The Foobies.com and Fark.com main pages have been replaced with a fake administration page. Options include fark cliches such as appending duke sucks to stories. The main page of Foobies.com was later replaced with a fark style main page containing fake news.
* The British rugby union site Planet-Rugby.com players from France and Italy, to take effect with the Lions' next scheduled tour to South Africa in 2009.
* The first 5 items in Volume 24: Issue 22 of the Risks Digest
* The online retailer ThinkGeek offered for sale various fake products such as a grow your own 1-up mushroom kit, a caffeine inhaler, wireless extension cords, an iZilla player, and a desktop tanning center. Their tagline: "Stuff for the Smart Masses" has the "M" crossed out to say, "Stuff for the Smart Asses". [16] ThinkGeek also put a banner announcing PlayStation 3 "now shipping" [17]. The banner says: "click to order" but nothing happens as it is a not linked banner. In the source code, under the banner, it says "What are you looking for? Go away. There is NO URL. Or is there? MUAHAHAHAHAHA". On the bottom, you can see "Stop reading this. Your life surely can't be so bad that you're reading this useless swill? Also when you click on the photo of the The Screened Sphorb it just shows "loading quicktime 360 view"
* Two prominent git hackers announced they will begin working for BitMover Inc..
o Goobix.com has announced that it was acquired by Yahoo! as a Web 2.0 company, following their evil plan of dominating the "Web 2.0" Internet. [18]
o Juxel.com (NSFW) also announced it was acquired by Yahoo!, and changed their logo to match. [19]
* Apple will celebrate their their 30th anniversary today by unveiling the world's first ever advertisement that can be seen from space: a giant iPod covering 893,240 square metres, roughly equivalent to eighty football fields.
* Hungarian Unix Portal Tha main page was changed to: D3f4<3d by y3rt h4x0r gr0up! (yert is a reverse name of HUP editor: trey)
* Ishkur of [20] "announced" he is no longer going to be running his website, and sold it off for $58,000. He has an emo goodbye song.
* Microsoft enthusiast Robert Scoble announced that he's leaving Microsoft to work for Google[21].
* TYPE-MOON,a Japanese visual-novel game company announces a new yaoi game here, plus a brand new amusement park including three Tiger Dojos.
* Wookieepedia temporarily made Earth its featured article. See Earth at Wookieepedia.
* Zooomr changes name to Zooooomr^3 and boasts Flickr-esque layout
* [22] A RFD in news:uk.net.news.config for the group uk.people.chavs
* Iexbeta.com "announced" that one of its administrators, Taco Bell, had taken over the website and rebranded it as Taco Beta.
* BitmeTV Announced can't hide" page (A parody of the MPAA's anti-piracy catchphrase, "You can click but you can't hide") and claims to be shut down by court order. In addition, the Poll of the Day on thethat they are randomly disabling accounts due to serverload
* Ctrl+Alt+Del - The main characters Ethan, Lucas, and Lilah have all swapped outfits in the April 1st comic.
* deviantART announces a merger with myspace.com in their latest poll. $lolly makes mention of hacking and misappropriation of funds by a staff member and senior member in his April 1st Journal. A new Web 2.0 revamp is previewed in a [screenshot].
* Distorted View Podcast Tim Henson edited the show to be in reverse order.
* Harry Potter fanfiction has annouced that it will now be called MuggleCom.Net and will no longer feature fan-fiction stories but instead be more newsy. The layout is almost exactly the same as what MuggleNet's was, and the homepage features a varity of comical stories.
* Flickr has turned their Explore und Interestingnessinto a "cats only" extravaganza.
* Good-TutorialsAnnouncement of the 'new layout' is actually the two year old design
* Google Romance is announced by Google.[23][24]
* Harry Potter Fan Zone announced that it had been shut down by the Ministry of Magic.
* ihatebobcostas.com,reports it has taken Bob Costas,an American sports reporter, hostage on ransome of $5000 USD in the pricipality of Liechtenstein.
* Kotaku,Lifehacker and Gizmodo, all part of Gawker Media have dubbed Apirl 1st "Z-day" where humanity has been affected by an onslaught of zombies. Each site is treating the subject according to their specific topic (i.e. Gizmodo features Zombie related gadgets, Lifehacker discusses how to be successful in the post zombie apocalypse world).
* MuggleNet Has announced it will know be joined with The Leaky Cauldron to form The Leaky-Mug. Following the marriage of the owners of both sites Emerson Spartz and Melissa Anelli.
* NarniaWeb posted several hoaxes related to the next installment of The Chronicles of Narnia film series, including an announcement that Mr. T had been cast to voice Reepicheep the mouse.
* NationStates The Main page was changed to NationDates.
* Rebelscum reports that Madonna has been cast as an evil Sith witch in the upcoming Star Wars Televison Series.
* Seraphic, an online web comic, announced that a live action version of the story will air as a miniseries on the Sci-Fi Channel this fall. The home page of the web site has been changed to look like a scifi.com page.
* Shur'tugal.com, an Eragon fansite, suddenly took on a mirrored layout, and all news on the home page stated very unlikely happenings, such as Edward Speleers, the actor playing Eragon in the new Eragon movie, being cast as Dorothy in "the upcoming remake of The Wizard of Oz."
* StarTrekOnline.net reported the "announcement" of the identity of the 9th playable race in Perpetual Entertainment's upcoming MMO Star Trek Online. The site immediately swore its allegience to Star Wars Galaxies, with a full main site redesign.
* Uknova The main page was changed to look like a BBC Article that reported the site (and others) had been taken down via a swoop against Bittorrent from the BBC.
* Wizards of the Coast announces that they will be publishing My Little Pony: The Roleplaying game as a d20 system game to introduce young girls into roleplaying games, and make them more likely to play Dungeons & Dragons when they are older.
* Ask Jeeves [25] has introduced a new search engine service called Rhyme Your Search, which returns your search with rhyming alternatatives.
* DeadSexy.org [26] has been taken over by monkey
* Fairly wholesome webcomic publisher Keenspot announces their first hardcore pornographic webcomic, Worser Than Worst.
* The nUbuntu Linux distribution homepage has adopted a pink background and a banner proclaiming "OMG PONIES!". Coincidentally, the nUbuntu team has been asked to cease development immediately, one day before April Fool's day. They have since posted an email address for people to send in emails of support to fight nUbuntu being shut down. as.proof.il@nubuntu.com (an anagram of April fool's)
* The Sonic Fan Games HQ Forums[27] had the discussion groups order reversed.
* LUElinks had changed it's name to "LOLlinks", and the style of the site has been changed to match that of GameFAQs.
* Stone Brewery, makers of Arrogant Bastard Ale, have released Bastard Oxide Energy Ale [28], aimed at the heavy metal crowd in need of a "pick me up."
* Un-official image hosting site for Anandtech -- pics.bbzzdd.com announced that it is being bought out by Yahoo! and merged with Flickr
* Zoto[29], a photo sharing site, announced[30] a new release supporting a whole host of MIDI file related features.
* Madison Parks of TheOneGreatX.com made a post stating that he was to be arrested for various crimes and would not return.
* Dark and Shattered Lands banned all non-christians from playing. When you log in you are prompted with: Do you renounce Satan and accept Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour? Y/N. If you answer no you are not allowed to log in.
* 4q.cc changed the layout of the site to use the complete opposite colors of the normal layout.
[edit]
Web 2.0 pranks
[edit]
On television
* NBC ran some Public service announcements in the style of the "The More You Know" campaign, done by cast members of "The Office", while in character. An example by Dwight Schrute: "Black bears weigh between 2 and 500 pounds. Brown bears weigh between 300 and over a thousand pounds. Black bears run away from you. Brown bears run at you. When attacked by a bear, simply lie still on the ground and cover your face and head with your hands. When the bear's finished batting you around and mauling you, contact the U.S. Forest Service." More of these PSAs are posted on NBC's web site.
* Arsenal FC defender Ashley Cole, appearing on Channel 4's 'T4' show pretended that he was set to release a duet with his fiancee Cheryl Tweedy, which would involve him rapping on it.
* TG2 news at Italian Public TV Broadcast RAI's announced a new miracolous diet pill called SlimmiXL. The pill should be accompanied with a diet rich of fish.
[edit]
On the radio
* On Weekend Edition, the Saturday news program of National Public Radio, host Scott Simon tried out a medical device known as the "iBod" with the help of its "inventors." The iBod was supposedly capable of arbitrarily altering a person's biological functions, and Simon experienced a heart rate of over 250 bpm with the turn of a dial.
* On 702 ABC Sydney in Australia, weekend presenter Simon Marnie conducted the last hour of the show from a Collins class submarine in Sydney Harbour that departed from the Australian National Maritime Museum. The submarine docked to pick up passengers including fellow presenter Tony Eastley and a lucky 702 Sydney listener. The program ended when the submarine was submerged and attacked by a sea monster.
* On Triple J Radio in Australia, morning hosts were claiming that, to celebrate 'Urban month' the station was going to be changing for the entire months play list to only feature hip hop, much to the complaint of many listeners calling in. Triple J played non-stop hip hop til 12 noon and had many promo's already set up to play for the up coming month, enforcing the jokes credibility.
* BBC Radio 4's Today Programme announces that the UK Theme (which has really been scheduled for scrapping) is to be replaced with a European Union Theme. Listen to it here
* On WBRU in the United States, station claims that it was sold to a large corporation and has now changed formats. Listners still debating whether or not it is a joke.
* On 2-Ten FM in the United Kingdom, station claims that an elephant is causing traffic problems on the M4.
* On BBC Three Counties Radio, presenter Justin Dealey told listeners that from the end of this month, there would be a new car radio license of ?200 a year. If you didn?t want to pay it, you would have to take your radio out of the vehicle.
* Oldies station Capital Gold in London promoted a new classical breakfast show, featuring Classic FM presenter Simon Bates. "No more Beatles - just a new relaxing breakfast show."
* On 102.2 Smooth FM in London, listeners were told women of a certain 'size' would be refused entry onto various attractions at Thorpe Park in Surrey.
* On RTE Radio 1, The Derek Mooney Show announced the construction of a dual carriage way and a ten foot high wall through Phoenix Park
* Capital FM announced that they had installed a smellophone and encouraged digital listeners to sniff their radios, reported that Tony and Cherie Blair had painted the door of 10 Downing Street red, and said that a penguin had been spotted in the Thames.
* 103.4 Sun FMWeekend Breakfast Show team reported that Niall Quinn, if he bought SAFC he would, as a deal, have part of the River Wear re-named The River Niall
* Red FM Reports that the UK and Ireland , in an effort to comply with the rest of the EU member country's, are to start driving on the right hand side of the road. Trials are to begin in the two capitals, Dublin and London.
[edit]
In newspapers and magazines
* New Zealand's Otago Daily Times claimed that a sponsorship and advertising deal had been done between the Mitre 10 chain of hardware stores and the New Zealand Department of Conservation over the Otago Royal Albatross colony [31]. The DoC would get funds to protect the birds, and in return the adult birds would be dyed in the chain's corporate colour, orange.
* The Independent on Sunday explored Sylvia Plath's forgotten affair with Chuck Berry, along with various other unlikely celebrity pairings. [32]
* Science News found a new work by Euclid. [33]
* Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed that the new iGame, an Apple portable gaming device, is being released on page 32. It also claimed that iTunes was to have an iGame section for buying games for new device.
* The Taipei Times in Taiwan claims to have blown the cover off of a secret weapons program utilizing betel nut extract, employing "an aerosol-dispersal device to shower enemy positions with red betel-nut juice, leaving enemy personnel feeling slightly ill, while possessing them with an uncontrollable desire to sing at a KTV." [34]
* The Straits Times in Singapore published an article with the headline "Visitors going ape over Zoo's new primate exhibit", claiming that Singapore Zoo is set to extend its primate family with "a pair of the highly intelligent apes Simia mina - close relatives of gorillas and chimpanzees which have been documented communicating vocally, using tools and even walking upright". However, this is "stirring up a controversy" as the "Simia mina are in an enclosure not much bigger than the bedroom of an HDB flat, and will be kept there till April 31".
* The Economist claims that a company called GeneDupe plans to genetically engineer pet dragons. [35]
* The Daily Express reports that biscuits are good and strong and are been used to build our roads!
* The Daily Mail announces that Cherie Blair has insisted that the door to 10 Downing Street be painted red, and that apples will be grown with barcodes already on them.
* The Guardian runs with the headline - "Their wives met at yoga. Now Chris plans to rock the vote for Cameron's Tories." The story claims that Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin has written a new anthem for the British Conservative Party called "Talk to David". The song expresses his disillusionment with Tony Blair, his admiration for David Cameron[36], and is available for download.
* "The Sydney Morning Herald" features a full page ad condemning the proposed "anti-steering laws" as likely to increase insurance premiums. Another ad features the new HP Scratch-n-Sniff Server.
* "Mikrobitti" Net.Nyt reporters have come up with Knome, two widely used Open Source Desktop Environments KDE and Gnome have merged into Knome. KDE ja Gnome ly?v?t hynttyyt yhteen .[37]
* The Times tells us about the new Chip and Sing[38] whilst also running full page ads for a BMW that is pixel-coated and that Rugby Union referees are to wear glasses from now on.
[edit]
Unverifiable or Misinterpreted
* Ogrish reports a bizarre baby born in Nepal [39] The child appears to have anencephaly and this was reported on a major Nepal news site on March 29th.
* In the United Kingdom, people will not be able to renew their television licence from the Post Office, as the BBC has given the contract from the Royal Mail to PayPoint. (Statement was given on the 31st March, but some may have heard on the 1st April)
* The Simpsons Movie was confirmed today, some people might be confused that it might be a joke.
* Bob Ross Inc. announces a Bob Ross video game on Marth 31st
* UK version of the FBI used to target fraudsters and drug-offenders launches. The Serious Organised Crime Agency was created by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. April 1 has long been the customary day used for reforms of local government and police forces. [40]
* Jpopmusic, a J-pop news and gossip site, announced[41] J-pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki being casted as Lady Shiva in the upcoming film, Batman Begins 2.
source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_1,_2006)
Wikipedia has a list of all of the big pranks that have happened. The list is growing fast, enjoy the hilarity.
======
======
April Fools hoaxes in 2006
Hoaxes for this year include:
Contents
* 1 April Fools hoaxes in 2006
o 1.1 On the Internet
+ 1.1.1 Web 2.0 pranks
o 1.2 On television
o 1.3 On the radio
o 1.4 In newspapers and magazines
o 1.5 Unverifiable or Misinterpreted
* 2 External links
[edit]
On the Internet
* http://www.ClevelandBrew.com claims access is denied for a user's IP address, and suggests they call the company vice president's (real) personal mobile phone number for assistance.
* AOL UK announces a new reality show, where celebrities will operate on members of the public. This entertainment news item seems to be in AOL members-only pages. The link for members of the public to apply to be operated on goes to April Fools hoax on Google.
* albion arks,said that they had shut down the site and would make an "Arctic monkeys" fan site insted of the Libertines one.
* BBC News Online reports that "Airlines ban 'foul' Swedish fish". Includes a statement by the leader of the non-existant "Swedish Surstr?mming Academy".
* Blizzard Entertainment announced that the new Alliance race for their upcoming World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will be Wisps. They possess the radical ability to detonate themselves in order to strengthen their fellow players or weaken enemies. Due to the fact that the player would be permanently dead after doing this, many players claim that this is a joke, considering the news was released on March 31 - the day before April Fool's Day.
* Chicago-based furniture retailer Walter E. Smithe announced on their website (at http://www.smithe.com/field.htm) that they had signed an agreement with the Chicago Cubs to construct a dome over Wrigley Field, and to rename the park Walter E. Smithe Field.
* Conspiracy's website was replaced with Farbrausch's.
* The Cure for Information Overload
* DivX Head Up Display (XHUD), an in-car head up display for projecting DivX video on your front windshield.
* FictionAlley.Org announced a merger with Google, Microsoft, AOL, Coca Cola, The Walt Disney Company, American Airlines, Wal Mart, Lush, Yahoo, Nike, and Dan radcliffe, to better supply the consumerist needs of all people everywhere.
* Furcadia changed its main maps to make everything upside down, and very, very badly drawn. This was announced as an upgrade to 24-bit graphics.
* GameSpot, reports on Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming MMO World of Starcraft and the Top 10 Final Fantasy Games of all time.
* Hak.5, an IPTV show, announces that they have been bought out by G4, and that the show is shifting to a video-game focus.
* IceBB, a small PHP message board system, was renamed JarJar. [1]
* Ikonboard.com added a link to the AdminCP on its community forums which took users to http://forums.ikonboard.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=Admin
* Invisionfree's support forum has placed up a pink skin, and an administrator under the name of "Seth" made a duplicate username, in hopes of scaring the forum members into thinking there will be a hacking attack.
* DS Fanboy, a blog focusing on the Nintendo DS from Joystiq, posts that Nintendo has announced that the upcoming DS game, New Super Mario Bros., will only run on the Nintendo DS Lite.
* The Floating Isle of Sanopia announced that the 2 lead developers had both died in a horrible car accident involving a school bus full of young children. The HTML source code stated a URL where players could submit their username and get a free "April Fools" gift for finding their easter egg. Note: they replaced the gift page due to high traffic.
* Kingdom of Loathing index page redirects to a fake cybersquatting page - clicking any of the links returns to the game. Many of the "ultra-rare" adventures happen frequently, but fail to drop the ultra-rare item, with a fake MySQL error message.
* ModTheSims2, a popular Sims 2 fansite, renamed itself to ModYourLlama2.com, had multiple Llama related uploads and changed the theme.
* Moodle announced that they would be converting the code for their entire Open Source Learning Management System from PHP to .NET code before April 1, 2007.
* MSDN: Coding4Fun Day Special
* MUME [2], Multi-Users in Middle Earth, the Tolkien themed MUD shifted in a Star Wars parallel universe.
* Neopets pretended to add a Neopoint tax that charged you for each page you visited called 'NeoCharge'.
* NoHomers.net played a variety of pranks on its visitors, including changing the identity of people who made posts and reuploading the 2002 index page.
* OpenOffice.org's website has a news story about a takeover of the open-source office suite by Microsoft. The link to the full story goes to a hoax page.
* Opera Software launches an online photo library called Opera Models, an alternative to the polished style of existing photo libraries. [3]
* Slashdot incorporated a pink "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" theme at 00:00 UTC. This girlish theme is in stark contrast for a techie website believed to be mostly frequented by male nerds. A "Special Birthday Report" [4] about Jeff "Hemos" Bates emerged in the first minutes of the day. A link to Thinkgeek's wireless extension cords has also been posted. The presence of humor on Slashdot has yet to be confirmed.
* Slim Devices releases the K.R.O.N.O.S
* Technorati's top searches include Microsoft Bob, Apple Newton, PointCast, HyperCard, and other outdated technologies.
* The Economist announced that GeneDupe is working on genetically engineering such mythical creatures as dragons, unicorns, and gryphons.
* Uncyclopedia, claims to have been bought by Apple Computer in a "corporate takeover". [5]
* Wayne Hussey from The Mission UK confirms he will rejoin The Sisters of Mercy as guitarist.
* Whirlpool, an Australian broadband news site, announced that Telstra will be rolling out its ADSL2+ service with useful bandwidth limited 2Mbit while "the remaining ADSL2+ bandwidth will be reserved for Telstra branded services such as Foxtel Digital via streaming set-top box, BigPond Movies, and an as-yet unnamed consumer VoIP product targeting consumers interested in a second phone line." [6]
* YTMND has redone their website to resemble Ebaumsworld.com stating that the latter had purchased the former, and made a 10 second redirection to ebaumsworld forums.
* 2600 adopted a Google-like site layout.
* Astronomy Picture of the day sing the new camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to confirm that the Moon is made of green cheese. The telling clue was the resolution of a marked date after which the Moon may go bad.
* Ars Technica announces they have a golden-master version of Duke Nukem Forever.
* johnstoblog is reporting on the crisis of lack of original level designs, since all the good ones have been discovered already.
* Channel 9 Mike Hall - Network Enabled Refrigeration Device (and pranks at Microsoft)
* A livejournal Group Is reporting that Christopher Walken is dead.
* Dr McNinja, a webcomic, produced a comic in which it shows the artists stating that they'd stop making the comic, so as to avoid being killed by ninjas, a few days before April 1st, claiming that there'd be some new news about their stopping the comic on Saturday, April 1st. On April 1st an April Fools message was placed in the news section of the site.
* GBATemp, a handheld ROM news site, announced the Japanese release of New Super Mario Bros.
* Google Operating System Blog introduces Google Browser, a fast, versatile and secure text browser for the Internet. Google Browser is free, already out of beta, and the installer has only 1.68 MB.
* The PWN Shop LAN shut down by Hillary Clinton for promoting violent video games.
* GunZonline states: "We've found a serious problem on game service today. And you cannot play GunZ. We expect that it will take few days to fix the problem. Sorry for your convenience."
* KILLDEAD.ORG has announced that it will regularly release podcasts.
* DJYSRV A blog mostly about the Opera browser. claims that dolphins are browsing the internet with Opera Mini
* Mythic Entertainment (the makers of Dark Age of Camelot) tips their hat to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Instead of getting a horse to ride when you wish to travel the realms, you are now placed on the shoulders of a large person, who runs to your destination, while clapping coconuts together. Additionally, if you go to fight an epic monster like a dragon, or the ruler of the underworld, you may be underwhelmed at their size. On the servers dedicated to roleplaying, many of the NPCs have a manner of speech that is quite unpopular with the residents.
* Newgrounds.com annouced that they have acquired I-Mockery.com. The actual I-Mockery homepage was styled to look Newgrounds-branded.
* Paper Programs, a small open source development group was bought up by Microsoft
* Pkmn.Net reported that the elusive Celebi could be caught in Pok?mon Emerald. In addition, anyone typing 'Pok?mon' in the forums would have it come out as 'Digimon', among many other things.
* Rate Your Music changed its messageboards to cover only inane topics such as "Beatles vs. Rolling Stones," and changed all album cover images.
* Starcraft Revolution, which is a mod for Warcraft 3, introduces the hybrids race, represented by a creature that combines purity of essence and purity of form: Chuck Norris.
* Fetish Cycles is bought out by Quality Bike Products, introduce the "Snuff" frame. [7]
* Pokemon Emerald MA has had several forum changes, including: Changing Member titles(ex. Members=Fuzzy Wuzzy Bunny) and putting up a pink skin with the phrase "OMG Ponies!" included in the banner.
* Coming Round Springfield message board changes from The Simpsons to Star Wars, in the shape of Coming Round Coruscant.
* TeeVeePedia is a Wikipedia parody from TeeVee.org -- this is their 10th annual April Fool's Day site!
* Textfiles.com adopts a Google like layout, with a link explaining that they joined up with Google.
* Thatsjustnotright.com changed its forum back to the poo brown of its glory days, rid itself of the current mods, banned many contributors, and brought back some members who were previously banned, giving them mod powers
* THCNET appears to have been shut down by the MPA and german GVU. Oh no!
* the cosmotron Changed it's contents to match that of cosmotron.
* TVEps is reporting that Isaac 'Chef' Hayes not leaving southpark after all. He comes clean that it was a publicity stunt.
* Vast.com states: "Vast.com has launched a new category, Credit Card search Our "deep" crawler now recognizes and extracts credit card numbers accidentally posted all across the web, and enables you to shop with them. What's the business model, indeed!"
* 22Pixels reports on a new Adobe Photoshop CS2.5, the download leads to the old Random Burper.
* 4chan claims that their editor called moot has been eaten by a shark
* Amakna Square, a fantsite for the Flash-based game Dofus, changed its name and banner to Astrub Zaap (an in-game location where free players often hawk their overpriced wares), and its motto to "Where noobs flutter and beg..."
* ActiveWin.com has posted 6 exclusive screenshots of an early Alpha version of Windows IE 8.0, codename "Teahupoo".
* Airliners.net changed their colors saying, "With over 98% male users, Airliners.net needs to take major action to attract more female visitors."
* Animal Crossing Ahead announced that Nintendo and Microsoft were developing "Animal Crossing 360" for the Xbox 360, slated to be released later this year.
* AntiComics launches as an April Fools parody of webcomic critic sites such as Websnark and Fleen.
* Arolos Weyr and Dark Fort Weyr announce that they will be becoming commercial, charging players for such things as the ability to Hear Inanimate Objects and have black dragons.
* BattleRealms.us turned into a "Donkey Singing" along with a color scheme change that is far different from the default red and black that they use.
* Blizzard Entertainment has announced a new company-owned restaurant chain called BurgerCraft, in which you can order Yamato Burgers, Zealot Fries, and much more. You can also gain Hunger Points to reach the rank of Grand Gourmand and access the Secret Cow Level, the VIP lounge. While the press release is dated April 1, the annoucement on the main page is dated March 31.
* Branchez-Vous reporting that Quebec's Prime Minister is offering free iPods to the first 1000 people who ask for one on his website.
* Bullshido.net posts news story about the owner selling the site for "$560,381, 40,000 shares of Century Martial Arts, two Wing Chun dummies, and a lifetime subscription to Black Belt Magazine" and changes the site to reflect match the layout of it's "new owner's" site.
* CollegeHumor.com fakes what looks like an overseas webpage. The original is available from a link in the new page.
* The Hungarian Demoscene Portal retrograded back to it's 2001 layout. (The up-to-date site was still available.)
* DistroWatch releases review about new "Windows Hasta La Vista"
* DOMAI (NSFW) substitutes text descriptions for pix.
* Dotcomr has announced that they will be changing names back to their previous names and were at one time considering bologna sandwich.
* eBaum's World - Created multiple fake government regulation sites involving the "Internet Regulations and Legislation Bureau"; showed censored versions of several of their media to get the point across. [8]
* Esctoday.com, a website covering the Eurovision Song Contest, reports that from 2007, the competition will be open to 55 countries, with five simultaneous semi-finals being held across Europe to determine which countries qualify for the final competition. This story actually leaked out on March 31 2006, due to the need to release press releases on the day before publication.
* Fark.com Posts articles about curry, and claims Duke University is one of the "best places in the world"
* FidoFinder.com Lost dog web site lists a $1,000,000 reward for Paris Hilton's lost dog.
* Firestream, a Christian Heavy Metal Community, announced that it was moving from heavy metal music to Southern Gospel.
* Motley Fool, an investment site is filing a class-action lawsuit against the US government.
* fxguide fxguide features the making of for a black on white super
* GameDrift.com states: "Miami attorney Jack Thompson has won the case involving a badly executed Walmart robbery against Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., the publisher of the Grand Theft Auto Series. Rockstar was not involved in the process."
* GameFAQs shows a "You can cheat, but you can't hide" main page. In addition, the poll on the real main page is intentionally nonsensical, including choices such as "Snakes on a Plane" and "O RLY? YA RLY!" (all have been fads of the LUE forum). The Daily Grind forum was resurrected, the letter "e" is banned on the controversial LUE forum and three new secret boards have been created.
* Game Maker Games, an archive for games made with Game Maker, posted four reviews of clown games, all of which recieved unusually high scores.
* Gamer Joe posted an update featuring the main character in an alternate fanfic universe
* GameStay, reports that Microsoft to solve backward compatibility and save game issues, releases the Xbox into Xbox 360 Connection Kit code-named Mea Culpa.
* getDigital This shop offers a perfect wardriver stand-alone tool with functions like cracking WEP-keys and starting a VoIP call over an unsecured WLAN.
* Givemebeats.com - The owner of the website, Mardix, told the producers on the website that he's filing a legal complaint against them, and that he's going to sell everybody's beat so he doesn't go to jail. This created a panic on the website. People wanted to remove their beats, but their account was locked, making them impossible to make any changes. But later on that day, a new version is released.
* God Mode, a webcomic about the staff of a game news website, turned its homepage into the fictional "God Mode Online" website within the comic and featured a Street Fighter 4 news hoax.
* golemtemplates.com, Template web page switches their layout to display terrible web designs and stock photos no one would want.
* GTA-SanAndreas.com released a fake forum staff board to the public, claiming the forum software had glitched after one of the administrators fiddled with some settings.
* Gutterzombie, Comic Arts forum announces it has gone pay.
* Homestar Runner has most of the website upside-down.
* Homeworking.com the forum and advice site for homeworkers, has announced that a group of Asian Leicestershire Millionaires (Leicestershire Immigrant People's Association) are giving away the price of joining an MLM to encourage a minimum number of immigrants to be represented in this field - the new minimum to be known as the LIPA Floor, here.
* Homeworking.com the forum and advice site for homeworkers, has announced that email copies of posts made to the forum may be slow to arrive today, due to the internet being cleaned, here.
* How Stuff Works Has two articles, one on animated tattoos and one on hydro-ordnance.
* Homestar Runner Wiki retrograded back from MediaWiki to WikkiTikkiTavi.
* ibiblio Petitions W3C for introduction of BLiNG tag to the XHTML standard; heralds the dawn of Web 2.1 by adding 'bling' to the Web
* iLounge adopts subscription model, and establishes hourly Q&A fee.
* IWOOT, a UK gadget site, offers for sale a tiny device that downloads your brain's memory to a 2GB USB Flash Drive.
* Londinivm.com, an online rpg game announces the removal of major game features, and the addition of features todo with the game, 'Cricket'.
* The Brotherhood of Britannia announced its reformat into a One Tree Hill fansite.
* Matt Cutts announces he leaves Google to work at Yahoo (and Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny announces the reverse).
* MacHall, a Popular Webcomic, has its main character discover his hidden homosexual orientation
* Mobile Gazette announces plans by the British government to close down the country's GSM networks for re-use with a top secret citizen surveillance program.
* The Mod Archive, a popular source of computer music announced a shutdown after 10 years on the scene.
* Multiplay UK, A gaming community with the latest news "NASA Picks Top Five Games For Archive" claiming 5 games will be sent on a journey in to the unknown, hopefully reaching other life to let the aliens see what human life is like.
* Newsforge has announced that Linus Torvalds and the OSDL have formed the world's first Open Source Dress for Success University (OSDSU).
* OCAU, a hardware enthusiast site, announced plans to remove popular forums and delete all forum accounts less than two years old, in an attempt to return to "the Good Old Days".
* Philmug the Philippines Macintosh User Group has become the Philippines Microsoft User Group due to Dvorak's "apple dumping OSX for windows" article
* PlanetHalfLife.com - Large Half-Life news site turns pink.
* Revolution Report, published an article claiming that the final name of Nintendo's new console had been released. [9]
* The Salvation Army in the UK unveils plans to supercede charity wristbands with charity beards in an 'innovative Wear Your Beard To Work Day', illustrated with some attractive bearded ladies!
* SectionZ claims in an email to subscribers that due to a lawsuit, the underground electronic music website will go offline forever. A link in the email forwards users to a YTMND page stating it was an April Fools Joke.
* Serebii.net's banner has been changed to a Super Princess Peach, Mario one.
* Supergamez, a Hungarian news portal states, that P2P networks will be legalized in Hungary.
* Sideshow Collectables announces 6 inch Final Battle Darth Maul figure.
* SitePoint published an article giving advice on how to build your own successful Web 2.0 application. The article satirizes the recent eBook, Getting Real published by the poster-child of Web 2.0 businesses, 37signals, and among its suggestions advises readers to "set it up and sell it off -- implementation is for losers!" They also announced they would be charging for posts to their General Chat forum, which angered a number of regular visitors.
* BMW UK BMW announces the new "slow cameras gizmo".
* Starslip Crisis, a sci-fi webcomic, has mirror-imaged its front page with all links still functional.
* StarWars.com made an announcement on its main page linking to an article explaining that characters from the Willow universe had been inserted into the official Star Wars canon.[10]
* Svencoop.com, a domain website for Half-Life based mod Sven Co-op, has been taken over by "Sven's Discount Co-operative," an online shopping store, which claims to offer discounted products from TVs and DVD players to toys, clothing and kitchenware.
* TermiSoc, the University of Plymouth's Networking Society has reported that, due to a large bursary, they are switching their 3 Linux servers over to Windows Server 2003.
* The Celeb Forum, a celebrity forum, announced that it was adding naked male celebrity boards to it's forum - shocking many members. The forum, also pranked people into believing one its moderators was an intelligent grown-up, when he was, in fact, Rowlesy.
* TheGTAPlace.com fakes Grand Theft Auto: "Chicago" [11] announcement. Whois lookup in the domain reveals "APRIL.GTACHICAGO.COM" and "FOOLS.GTACHICAGO.COM".
* The Register announces that China is buying Google
* The Register also announces that the US Department of Justice and the office of the White House Counsel are preparing a draft document laying out the President's wartime authority to remain in office past 2008
* The Wotch, a Webcomic, announced 2 days earlier that they were starting a new subcomic based on the popular character Jason Grey. Fans of the comic got very excited. The day the first comic was posted, April 1, eager Wotchers found this.
* ticalc.org and Detached Solutions have changed their main pages to look like they were taken by domain name squatters.
* Tokyo Toshokan has been shut down by the United States Supreme Court (A white link, effectively blending in with the background, reveals the joke.).
* Tomorrow.SG, a popular Singapore blog bulletin, posted plans to charge readers SGD$5.55 per month based on a subscription, due to an "unexpected growth in both audience and traffic".
* Tron Sector announced a fake Tron sequel, Tron: No More Goofing Around.
* UbuntuStudio, a wiki for using Ubuntu Linux for a digital music studio, redirects to FruityLoops.com, a Windows application.
* RaGEZONE admin has been arrested for releasing copyright MMORPG server files.
* Ufck Forums was overtaken by Kern and his man-love was spread everywhere
* Undeadly.org posts a link to (OpenBSD Founder) Theo DeRaadt's livejournal where he complains about the lack of beer funds and eventually announces suspension of OpenBSD development because he needs to get a 9 to 5 job.
* United Bimmer - BMW forums overrun with pink and non-tasteful ricer modding.
* Urban Dead, an online game, tells you that you got bitten by "A vampire" who "drained 1 pint of blood" since last turn, or heard "A Werewolf" howling. Clicking the link to either profile shows a page that displays the message "April Fools!"
* Woot.com sold a $19.99 "MAG KleerDrain Instant Drain Opener", and the "I want one!" button was modified to follow the user's cursor, disallowing them from doing anything on the site other than buying the product. Also Self-Declared as the '06 Worst Woot Candidate.
* WRANKmusic - instead of the normal music news site, points to a Fraggle Rock fan club web site last edited in 1999.
* Yahoo! buys all the Web 2.0 companies in existence.
* Y-hosting's Yaoi Gallery has been claimed by deviantART, and will now feature yuri and heterosexual art.
* Zombie Squad turned into "Happy Team" for April fool's day.
* Aspira Media releases the new W3C CSS specifications update. [12]
* Chicago-based furniture retailer Walter E. Smithe announced on their website (at http://www.smithe.com/field.htm) that they had signed an agreement with the Chicago Cubs to construct a dome over Wrigley Field, and to rename the park Walter E. Smithe Field.
* FIFA World Cup time delay, hoax site http://www.vvorldcup.com setup by blogger at http://www.iminstant.com
* Metroid and TThomaso, moderators of the VX Flash Forums, announced the Deletion of the popular General Discussion forums citing spam as the reason for their closure.
* Rui Carmo, of The Tao of Mac fame, is ditching OS X for Linux.
* StarTrek.com claims to have an exclusive preview of a new version of the website, but the link goes to a cheaply made 90s webpage about Star Trek, flashing graphics and all. [13]
* The amaroK music player announces a 2.0 release with a fanciful list of features including tabbed playlists and an amaroK music store. [14]
* The Drupal CMS announced that the program is going to be rewritten in Ook!. [15]
* The Foobies.com and Fark.com main pages have been replaced with a fake administration page. Options include fark cliches such as appending duke sucks to stories. The main page of Foobies.com was later replaced with a fark style main page containing fake news.
* The British rugby union site Planet-Rugby.com players from France and Italy, to take effect with the Lions' next scheduled tour to South Africa in 2009.
* The first 5 items in Volume 24: Issue 22 of the Risks Digest
* The online retailer ThinkGeek offered for sale various fake products such as a grow your own 1-up mushroom kit, a caffeine inhaler, wireless extension cords, an iZilla player, and a desktop tanning center. Their tagline: "Stuff for the Smart Masses" has the "M" crossed out to say, "Stuff for the Smart Asses". [16] ThinkGeek also put a banner announcing PlayStation 3 "now shipping" [17]. The banner says: "click to order" but nothing happens as it is a not linked banner. In the source code, under the banner, it says "What are you looking for? Go away. There is NO URL. Or is there? MUAHAHAHAHAHA". On the bottom, you can see "Stop reading this. Your life surely can't be so bad that you're reading this useless swill? Also when you click on the photo of the The Screened Sphorb it just shows "loading quicktime 360 view"
* Two prominent git hackers announced they will begin working for BitMover Inc..
o Goobix.com has announced that it was acquired by Yahoo! as a Web 2.0 company, following their evil plan of dominating the "Web 2.0" Internet. [18]
o Juxel.com (NSFW) also announced it was acquired by Yahoo!, and changed their logo to match. [19]
* Apple will celebrate their their 30th anniversary today by unveiling the world's first ever advertisement that can be seen from space: a giant iPod covering 893,240 square metres, roughly equivalent to eighty football fields.
* Hungarian Unix Portal Tha main page was changed to: D3f4<3d by y3rt h4x0r gr0up! (yert is a reverse name of HUP editor: trey)
* Ishkur of [20] "announced" he is no longer going to be running his website, and sold it off for $58,000. He has an emo goodbye song.
* Microsoft enthusiast Robert Scoble announced that he's leaving Microsoft to work for Google[21].
* TYPE-MOON,a Japanese visual-novel game company announces a new yaoi game here, plus a brand new amusement park including three Tiger Dojos.
* Wookieepedia temporarily made Earth its featured article. See Earth at Wookieepedia.
* Zooomr changes name to Zooooomr^3 and boasts Flickr-esque layout
* [22] A RFD in news:uk.net.news.config for the group uk.people.chavs
* Iexbeta.com "announced" that one of its administrators, Taco Bell, had taken over the website and rebranded it as Taco Beta.
* BitmeTV Announced can't hide" page (A parody of the MPAA's anti-piracy catchphrase, "You can click but you can't hide") and claims to be shut down by court order. In addition, the Poll of the Day on thethat they are randomly disabling accounts due to serverload
* Ctrl+Alt+Del - The main characters Ethan, Lucas, and Lilah have all swapped outfits in the April 1st comic.
* deviantART announces a merger with myspace.com in their latest poll. $lolly makes mention of hacking and misappropriation of funds by a staff member and senior member in his April 1st Journal. A new Web 2.0 revamp is previewed in a [screenshot].
* Distorted View Podcast Tim Henson edited the show to be in reverse order.
* Harry Potter fanfiction has annouced that it will now be called MuggleCom.Net and will no longer feature fan-fiction stories but instead be more newsy. The layout is almost exactly the same as what MuggleNet's was, and the homepage features a varity of comical stories.
* Flickr has turned their Explore und Interestingnessinto a "cats only" extravaganza.
* Good-TutorialsAnnouncement of the 'new layout' is actually the two year old design
* Google Romance is announced by Google.[23][24]
* Harry Potter Fan Zone announced that it had been shut down by the Ministry of Magic.
* ihatebobcostas.com,reports it has taken Bob Costas,an American sports reporter, hostage on ransome of $5000 USD in the pricipality of Liechtenstein.
* Kotaku,Lifehacker and Gizmodo, all part of Gawker Media have dubbed Apirl 1st "Z-day" where humanity has been affected by an onslaught of zombies. Each site is treating the subject according to their specific topic (i.e. Gizmodo features Zombie related gadgets, Lifehacker discusses how to be successful in the post zombie apocalypse world).
* MuggleNet Has announced it will know be joined with The Leaky Cauldron to form The Leaky-Mug. Following the marriage of the owners of both sites Emerson Spartz and Melissa Anelli.
* NarniaWeb posted several hoaxes related to the next installment of The Chronicles of Narnia film series, including an announcement that Mr. T had been cast to voice Reepicheep the mouse.
* NationStates The Main page was changed to NationDates.
* Rebelscum reports that Madonna has been cast as an evil Sith witch in the upcoming Star Wars Televison Series.
* Seraphic, an online web comic, announced that a live action version of the story will air as a miniseries on the Sci-Fi Channel this fall. The home page of the web site has been changed to look like a scifi.com page.
* Shur'tugal.com, an Eragon fansite, suddenly took on a mirrored layout, and all news on the home page stated very unlikely happenings, such as Edward Speleers, the actor playing Eragon in the new Eragon movie, being cast as Dorothy in "the upcoming remake of The Wizard of Oz."
* StarTrekOnline.net reported the "announcement" of the identity of the 9th playable race in Perpetual Entertainment's upcoming MMO Star Trek Online. The site immediately swore its allegience to Star Wars Galaxies, with a full main site redesign.
* Uknova The main page was changed to look like a BBC Article that reported the site (and others) had been taken down via a swoop against Bittorrent from the BBC.
* Wizards of the Coast announces that they will be publishing My Little Pony: The Roleplaying game as a d20 system game to introduce young girls into roleplaying games, and make them more likely to play Dungeons & Dragons when they are older.
* Ask Jeeves [25] has introduced a new search engine service called Rhyme Your Search, which returns your search with rhyming alternatatives.
* DeadSexy.org [26] has been taken over by monkey
* Fairly wholesome webcomic publisher Keenspot announces their first hardcore pornographic webcomic, Worser Than Worst.
* The nUbuntu Linux distribution homepage has adopted a pink background and a banner proclaiming "OMG PONIES!". Coincidentally, the nUbuntu team has been asked to cease development immediately, one day before April Fool's day. They have since posted an email address for people to send in emails of support to fight nUbuntu being shut down. as.proof.il@nubuntu.com (an anagram of April fool's)
* The Sonic Fan Games HQ Forums[27] had the discussion groups order reversed.
* LUElinks had changed it's name to "LOLlinks", and the style of the site has been changed to match that of GameFAQs.
* Stone Brewery, makers of Arrogant Bastard Ale, have released Bastard Oxide Energy Ale [28], aimed at the heavy metal crowd in need of a "pick me up."
* Un-official image hosting site for Anandtech -- pics.bbzzdd.com announced that it is being bought out by Yahoo! and merged with Flickr
* Zoto[29], a photo sharing site, announced[30] a new release supporting a whole host of MIDI file related features.
* Madison Parks of TheOneGreatX.com made a post stating that he was to be arrested for various crimes and would not return.
* Dark and Shattered Lands banned all non-christians from playing. When you log in you are prompted with: Do you renounce Satan and accept Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour? Y/N. If you answer no you are not allowed to log in.
* 4q.cc changed the layout of the site to use the complete opposite colors of the normal layout.
[edit]
Web 2.0 pranks
[edit]
On television
* NBC ran some Public service announcements in the style of the "The More You Know" campaign, done by cast members of "The Office", while in character. An example by Dwight Schrute: "Black bears weigh between 2 and 500 pounds. Brown bears weigh between 300 and over a thousand pounds. Black bears run away from you. Brown bears run at you. When attacked by a bear, simply lie still on the ground and cover your face and head with your hands. When the bear's finished batting you around and mauling you, contact the U.S. Forest Service." More of these PSAs are posted on NBC's web site.
* Arsenal FC defender Ashley Cole, appearing on Channel 4's 'T4' show pretended that he was set to release a duet with his fiancee Cheryl Tweedy, which would involve him rapping on it.
* TG2 news at Italian Public TV Broadcast RAI's announced a new miracolous diet pill called SlimmiXL. The pill should be accompanied with a diet rich of fish.
[edit]
On the radio
* On Weekend Edition, the Saturday news program of National Public Radio, host Scott Simon tried out a medical device known as the "iBod" with the help of its "inventors." The iBod was supposedly capable of arbitrarily altering a person's biological functions, and Simon experienced a heart rate of over 250 bpm with the turn of a dial.
* On 702 ABC Sydney in Australia, weekend presenter Simon Marnie conducted the last hour of the show from a Collins class submarine in Sydney Harbour that departed from the Australian National Maritime Museum. The submarine docked to pick up passengers including fellow presenter Tony Eastley and a lucky 702 Sydney listener. The program ended when the submarine was submerged and attacked by a sea monster.
* On Triple J Radio in Australia, morning hosts were claiming that, to celebrate 'Urban month' the station was going to be changing for the entire months play list to only feature hip hop, much to the complaint of many listeners calling in. Triple J played non-stop hip hop til 12 noon and had many promo's already set up to play for the up coming month, enforcing the jokes credibility.
* BBC Radio 4's Today Programme announces that the UK Theme (which has really been scheduled for scrapping) is to be replaced with a European Union Theme. Listen to it here
* On WBRU in the United States, station claims that it was sold to a large corporation and has now changed formats. Listners still debating whether or not it is a joke.
* On 2-Ten FM in the United Kingdom, station claims that an elephant is causing traffic problems on the M4.
* On BBC Three Counties Radio, presenter Justin Dealey told listeners that from the end of this month, there would be a new car radio license of ?200 a year. If you didn?t want to pay it, you would have to take your radio out of the vehicle.
* Oldies station Capital Gold in London promoted a new classical breakfast show, featuring Classic FM presenter Simon Bates. "No more Beatles - just a new relaxing breakfast show."
* On 102.2 Smooth FM in London, listeners were told women of a certain 'size' would be refused entry onto various attractions at Thorpe Park in Surrey.
* On RTE Radio 1, The Derek Mooney Show announced the construction of a dual carriage way and a ten foot high wall through Phoenix Park
* Capital FM announced that they had installed a smellophone and encouraged digital listeners to sniff their radios, reported that Tony and Cherie Blair had painted the door of 10 Downing Street red, and said that a penguin had been spotted in the Thames.
* 103.4 Sun FMWeekend Breakfast Show team reported that Niall Quinn, if he bought SAFC he would, as a deal, have part of the River Wear re-named The River Niall
* Red FM Reports that the UK and Ireland , in an effort to comply with the rest of the EU member country's, are to start driving on the right hand side of the road. Trials are to begin in the two capitals, Dublin and London.
[edit]
In newspapers and magazines
* New Zealand's Otago Daily Times claimed that a sponsorship and advertising deal had been done between the Mitre 10 chain of hardware stores and the New Zealand Department of Conservation over the Otago Royal Albatross colony [31]. The DoC would get funds to protect the birds, and in return the adult birds would be dyed in the chain's corporate colour, orange.
* The Independent on Sunday explored Sylvia Plath's forgotten affair with Chuck Berry, along with various other unlikely celebrity pairings. [32]
* Science News found a new work by Euclid. [33]
* Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed that the new iGame, an Apple portable gaming device, is being released on page 32. It also claimed that iTunes was to have an iGame section for buying games for new device.
* The Taipei Times in Taiwan claims to have blown the cover off of a secret weapons program utilizing betel nut extract, employing "an aerosol-dispersal device to shower enemy positions with red betel-nut juice, leaving enemy personnel feeling slightly ill, while possessing them with an uncontrollable desire to sing at a KTV." [34]
* The Straits Times in Singapore published an article with the headline "Visitors going ape over Zoo's new primate exhibit", claiming that Singapore Zoo is set to extend its primate family with "a pair of the highly intelligent apes Simia mina - close relatives of gorillas and chimpanzees which have been documented communicating vocally, using tools and even walking upright". However, this is "stirring up a controversy" as the "Simia mina are in an enclosure not much bigger than the bedroom of an HDB flat, and will be kept there till April 31".
* The Economist claims that a company called GeneDupe plans to genetically engineer pet dragons. [35]
* The Daily Express reports that biscuits are good and strong and are been used to build our roads!
* The Daily Mail announces that Cherie Blair has insisted that the door to 10 Downing Street be painted red, and that apples will be grown with barcodes already on them.
* The Guardian runs with the headline - "Their wives met at yoga. Now Chris plans to rock the vote for Cameron's Tories." The story claims that Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin has written a new anthem for the British Conservative Party called "Talk to David". The song expresses his disillusionment with Tony Blair, his admiration for David Cameron[36], and is available for download.
* "The Sydney Morning Herald" features a full page ad condemning the proposed "anti-steering laws" as likely to increase insurance premiums. Another ad features the new HP Scratch-n-Sniff Server.
* "Mikrobitti" Net.Nyt reporters have come up with Knome, two widely used Open Source Desktop Environments KDE and Gnome have merged into Knome. KDE ja Gnome ly?v?t hynttyyt yhteen .[37]
* The Times tells us about the new Chip and Sing[38] whilst also running full page ads for a BMW that is pixel-coated and that Rugby Union referees are to wear glasses from now on.
[edit]
Unverifiable or Misinterpreted
* Ogrish reports a bizarre baby born in Nepal [39] The child appears to have anencephaly and this was reported on a major Nepal news site on March 29th.
* In the United Kingdom, people will not be able to renew their television licence from the Post Office, as the BBC has given the contract from the Royal Mail to PayPoint. (Statement was given on the 31st March, but some may have heard on the 1st April)
* The Simpsons Movie was confirmed today, some people might be confused that it might be a joke.
* Bob Ross Inc. announces a Bob Ross video game on Marth 31st
* UK version of the FBI used to target fraudsters and drug-offenders launches. The Serious Organised Crime Agency was created by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. April 1 has long been the customary day used for reforms of local government and police forces. [40]
* Jpopmusic, a J-pop news and gossip site, announced[41] J-pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki being casted as Lady Shiva in the upcoming film, Batman Begins 2.
source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_1,_2006)