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Tuesday, January 30

Google TV: The Early April Fools Joke

"How to Sign Up for GoogleTV Beta" is the title of Infinite Solutions' video tutorial now available on YouTube, and what a longwinded, involved way to sign up it is!
You must go into Gmail, send yourself an email, and then log in and out of Google until a GoogleTV icon appears in the Gmail logo! Now you have access to GoogleTV Beta!

The efforts of those who spent hours logging in and out of Google, and asking for help on YouTube, have been fruitless - GoogleTV is a hoax! Such was the flurry of activity and interest that even Google got involved issuing the following statement to Google Blogoscoped:

"Mark Erickson's "Infinite Solutions" segment highlights Gmail's seemingly "infinite" powers - from gobs of storage and lightning fast search to some of the best anti-spam action in the business (and how about that sweet Easter Egg cowbell in Gmail Chat?). Alas, Mark's "Google TV beta" is simply a figment of his fertile imagination. But great entertainment for all of us here at the Googleplex."

If the swarm of video views, comments and questions is anything to go by, then Google may have another project to work on! GoogleTV looks set to be a popular sidearm to the expanding empire. On a much smaller scale young Mark Erickson has done his bit to boost his company's brand image - after all it is a masterpiece of a hoax - even Google say so!

2 Comments

At 9:11 AM, Anonymous said...: IT'S NOT A HOAX...IT WORKED FOR ME...YOU JUST HAVE TO FOLLOW MARK'S DIRECTIONS CLOSELY!
At 4:41 PM, Bob said...: It is most certainly a hoax. This is not just based on those who are "unable" to get it to work by following the instructions, but many other clues. First of all, the video was produced by Fatal Farm, which is notorious for producing hoax videos.

In one example, they show how to unlock "WRAPFIELD" mode in WinMine on Windows XP. Careful examination of the video demonstrating this shows the glitches in their video manipulation and that this is fully a hoax. Secondly, they specialize in video manipulation and have been doing so for a long time.

This hoax is all a viral marketing scheme by their organization to get themselves in the headlines. They are also likely searching for any blog entries about this hoax, and posting under anonymous handles stating that it's not a hoax. There are also likely other copy-cats who know it is a hoax, but want to further spread disinformation by attempting to replicate "proof" of the hoax themselves, usually doing a poorer job.

For what it's worth, the hoax was cleverly orchestrated. The viral marketing technique has, so far, worked pretty well. In the end, however, this doesn't change the fact that it is a hoax.

[I can see it now. The likely responses from Anonymous users or randomly generated user names will be:

1) Yeah, but still!

2) It's not a hoax! It's for real! I just had to try it 700 times, but it eventually worked!

3) It works, and I can prove it! Just send the contents of your grandmother's savings account to P.O. Box 549,...

Let the fun commence.]