The trouble is these days that the internet is amok with pranks at the best of times, so on April Fools day everyone’s antennae are twitching the second they log on. Despite that, the internets  is rife with attempts at comical humour. Some more successful than others. If you find any, let us know and we’ll document them through the day, with some kind of gimcrack rating. Also, we’re totally about spoiling everyone’s fun.

Google

Google have gone totally nuts this year. They’ve announced a partnership with Virgin for a Mars colony (called ‘Virgle’), real human waves in Google Wave, animal translation services, Google Docs will be able to store anything – up to and including car keys, nerdier stuff like Google Annotations Gallery (GAG) which gives developers a way to “express themselvesthrough code”, and the display of unmediated Tweets in the main SERPs for topical subjects. And a load of others that, frankly, I can’t be arsed to write about.

Our rating: quality and quantity from the search industry’s top pranksters

The Guardian: “Step Outside Posh Boy”

The Guardian reckon that Labour strategists are planning a poster campaign in which Gordon Brown will directly challenge Cameron to a fight, with the slogan “step outside posh boy” in a bid to capitalise on his reputation as a bully.

Our rating: Hmmm

The Telegraph: Ferrets to lay internet infrastructure

The Telegraph claim that specially trained ferrets will be used to take the internet to poor rural communities in a bid to bridge the ‘digital divide’. Interesting in light of Google’s use of the Virgin brand, this scheme is supposed to be run in conjunction with Virgin Media. Clearly Richard Branson is having a good day!

Our rating: amusing squib

Reddit

All Reddit users logging in today can turn themselves into an admin by clicking a link, giving them the power to ban other users, vote for their favourite stories an infinite number of stories and a load of other stuff that people in the Reddit community can understand and appreciate in a way that I can’t quite grasp myself

Our rating: Slater thought it was funny, but that’s because he uses Reddit so we’ll take his word for it.

Text Only Youtube

YouTube will be available in text-only ASCII format to “save $1 a second in running costs”. Alas that ASCII videos don’t appear to embed properly, hence no embed while I work on it

Our rating: quite awesome

Interflora: “Polka Dot Rose”

Interflora have announced that their botanists have produced the world’s first polka dot rose after 10 years of research into recombitant DNA. The anchor text on ‘rose’ suggests something else might be behind it all…

Our rating: linkbait ahoy!