There were several pranks this April Fools’ Day from tech companies, with Twitter advertising that it was cutting out all vowels from the service (those who subscribe could get them back) and Hulu saying they were going to start carrying fictional shows-within-shows like The Itchy and Scratchy Show and The Rural Juror. Google pulled out all the stops with a smell based search engine and Gmail Blue making the font blue… but the best one in our minds was what they announced for YouTube.
What was announced was that YouTube has been a video submission contest over the past eight years and will now shut down for judges to determine the best video, with the site reemerging a decade from now in 2023. The announcement video is replete with YouTube celebrities like Matt Harding, Antoine Dodson and iJustine.”Gangnam Style has the same chance of winning as a video with 40 views of a man feeding bread to a duck,” said YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar.Supposedly every video is a possible candidate and it won’t just be based on views (so Gangnam Style won’t automatically win). The first set of “nominees” are set to be announced here {link no longer active} and it will be interesting to see what is actually said.
