It’s April Fools Day, which means it’s hard to determine which news to pay attention to today and which might be not true at all. Some of this week’s promotional stunts were almost believable (American Eagle’s dog clothing line American Beagle) and some were hilariously fake (“Hannibal” got a cooking show?). Brief presents a few of our favorites:
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Hulu announced a few shows today that are definitely not getting full-season orders. Faux cooking show “In the Kitchen With Hannibal” joined a fake lineup of shows like “Scandal” spinoff “That’s My Fitz.” VH1 also came out with a new programming slate full of what the Internet truly loves: Cats. The press release, and accompanying promos, included shows like “Mob Cats” and “Love & Hip Hop: Meow York.”
The city of Ely, Minnesota, launched The Ely Channel today, using TLC as inspiration for fake shows like “Sauna Wars” and “The Real Housewives of St. Louis County.”
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Understanding the viral potential, tech companies got into the spirit too. YouTube released a video predicting what the viral trends would be for the coming year like “clocking” and butter fails.
Google+ debuted an Auto Awesome Photobombs app, which simply adds David Hasselhoff to your pictures, and Reddit introduced “Headdit,” which allows users to control the site with their heads - frown to down vote, shake your head to close a link, enable cat mode by putting your cat in front of the computer. DramaFever replaced all of its subtitles with emojis:
Tumblr introduced a free upgrade called Tumblr Pro, which gave users the great chance to… add a tophat to their avatars. LinkedIn went the cat route, announcing a new feature called CYMK (Cats You May Know) where you can connect with some up-and-comers like T-bone and Furrgus Sugarbritches. The U.K.‘s Tesco got into the action too, launching the “first tablet made for two,” the Cudl, based on its Hudl tablet, except this one is just two tablets connected by a tether, perfect for a “romantic night in.”
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Redbox today combined two things teens loved in the ‘90s: movies and mood rings. With just a touch of your hand, Redbox can determine what kind of movie you’re in the mood for: Blue? You need cheering up. Green? You need some action.
Now at select locations: touch the box and it will change colors to reveal your movie mood! http://t.co/2SvbhOrq86 pic.twitter.com/tKZrDdBbQO
— Redbox (@redbox) April 1, 2014
Virgin America and Nest teamed up for Total Temperature Control, which is exactly what it sounds like. It allows one person to control the temperature for every single seat on the plane - dangerous. Along those lines, Jimmy Kimmel tried on the spray-on yoga pant by Lululemon, Pebble went ultra high tech with its scratch ‘n sniff Smartwatch and TripAdvisor began recommending fictional locations for your next family vacation.
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And perhaps the best of all, “House of Cards” released a “sneak peek” of Season 3. Spoiler alert: there are meteors involved.
Read more at Lost Remote, TheWrap, Mashable, Adweek and TheNextWeb.
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