Facebook Users & App Developers Play Practical Jokes for April Fool’s Day

April 1st, 2009

By Justin Smith

It’s April Fools Day, and Facebook users and app developers alike are coming up with creative ways to play practical jokes on Facebook.

One of the most common “roommate” tactics we’ve seen is that of friends posting content without their roommates’ knowledge, only to have it be discovered hours later (or when they get a flood of calls from confused friends and relatives). However, this approach can also be dangerous (and technically against the TOS). Of the variety we’ve seen today, here’s a relatively harmless example of the “hacked status update” with accompanying email blast:

aprilfools3

aprilfoolsjoke

On the app developer side, the most creative marketing prank we’ve seen today comes from We’re Related, who sent notifications to 19 million members this morning telling them that Barack Obama has confirmed them as his “fourth cousin once removed”:

Barack Obama (Washington, DC) has confirmed you as his fourth cousin once removed on We’re Related.

Follow this link to see how you are related:
http://apps.facebook.com/we_r_related/?page=profile&fid=0U812&ref=fl.30

We’re Related Team

Jim Ericson of FamilyLink.com, the makers of We’re Related, says that 3 million people have visited the app today, and that, “Reactions have been extremely positive (94%), but have ranged from warnings about fraud/viruses to sheer delight, with hundreds of thousands of people falling for the joke.”

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3 Responses to “Facebook Users & App Developers Play Practical Jokes for April Fool’s Day”

FanSection Blog - Sports, Social Media, Analysis, Commentary Says:
April 1st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
[...] April Fools Day tends to be big business in Silicon Valley whether it be blogs or tech companies. When we set out to do something for April Fools Day, we wanted it to be something that benefited the company but also engaged and amused our users. Luckily, we’re working with sports here so the opportunities were endless. Sports fans are some of the most passionate people around, and news about their team is always sure to drive some interest…i.e. clicks. That got users back to the community to talk to fellow fans, but it also drove them straight to a splash page with a merchandise upsell – which means revenue to Watercooler. [...]
Bryan Bennett Says:
April 1st, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Nice. We received a ton of support emails today at Watercooler because users thought our Barack Obama app was sending sketchy notifications. We were completely confused. At least I now know where those came from. On our side, we sent tons of sports notifications telling fans their best player got traded, coach got fired, team was moving, etc. Most of them thought it was funny…Yankees fans, not so much.
Mike Spear Says:
April 2nd, 2009 at 8:52 am
“technically against the terms of service”
So TOS has a REAL meaning when:
When someone complains?
Someone is party to a perceived injury?
There is a legal violation?
Or when administrators say so?

Though there were some clever spoofs or jokes floating around I found the entire day to be a pain and pretty much quit looking at Facebook, Twitter, etc because it felt like a bunch of high school kids or University geeks having way too much fun with their toys.

Social media does a great job of spreading around some really useful stuff. Problem is it also does a great job of spreading around complete junk.