I can finally retire on my earnings! woop!

April 1, 2003 12:07 AM

I can finally retire on my earnings! woop!
posted by mathowie (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 12:07 AM (57 comments total)

you had me there for a second...
posted by y2karl at 12:08 AM on April 1, 2003

About time all your hard work paid off, Matt!

I can imagine what power Google will bring to Metafilter - for starters, I'm sure you'll be getting some faster servers. No doubt you can't tell us more than that just yet.

But what I'm really curious about is this: What is Metafilter bringing to Google?
posted by sixfoot6 at 12:11 AM on April 1, 2003

Ditto. Check your calendar folks.
posted by rowell at 12:14 AM on April 1, 2003

Congratulations. You will of course be paying dividends based on number and/or quality of posts, yes?

*waits to get her 2 cents back*
posted by girlhacker at 12:14 AM on April 1, 2003

Two words sixfoot6: Blogging Infrastructure.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:15 AM on April 1, 2003

And boy, is Matt glad he turned down the offer last year from AOL...
posted by wendell at 12:17 AM on April 1, 2003

p.s. Matt can you pleeeeeeez change the color of the Google ads now? Cripes, how many times do we have to ask? kthxbi.
posted by girlhacker at 12:18 AM on April 1, 2003

Fucking. Awesome. I yelled at my roommate to come in and see it.

Rival schools united by fate. Or infinite GoogleFilter posts. Greatness.
posted by one.louder.ash! at 12:19 AM on April 1, 2003

But, Matt, who will protect our Blogging Infrastructure?
posted by sixfoot6 at 12:19 AM on April 1, 2003

Aiiiiiii! The white! My eyes!

*puts on sunscreen and mirrorshades*
posted by Slithy_Tove at 12:21 AM on April 1, 2003

Genius.
posted by Katemonkey at 12:24 AM on April 1, 2003

The first I saw of it was clicking into a comments page, from the still-blue front page. I thought the Google ads had broken the stylesheet, or there was some sort of ad-takeover going on.

Then I went back to the homepage, and spat my pizza on the keyoard. Again, pure genius.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 12:26 AM on April 1, 2003

I like the new metafiiiiiiiiiiilter.
posted by jabo at 12:27 AM on April 1, 2003

That is a laugh riot.



As he hits the "feeling lucky" button.
posted by alicesshoe at 12:29 AM on April 1, 2003

Sellout.
posted by eddydamascene at 12:38 AM on April 1, 2003

...Everyone got quiet for a second while they read "Google buys Metafilter." stavrosthewonderchicken said "holy shit."

It was the coolest culmination and synchronicity, pancakes, and vibrating Iraqfilters.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:40 AM on April 1, 2003

These are the ads I'm currently seeing on the front page :

---

3-5* Discounted Hotels
Malta, Portugal, Tunisia, Morocco, Cuba, Mexico, Dominican Republic

Hotels, Pousadas, Manors
Self catering Rental Villas, Houses Portugal. All areas. All Inspected

Portugal - Hotel Guide
Great Hotels at Discount Prices Select, Reserve, and Save!

Hotels in Braga, pt
Low hotel rates from EUR 33.00 Save up to 60% on accommodation

Sasha's Lisbon Hotels
Great hotel selection, cheap local rates and friendly local service.

---

I don't know if that's deliberate, but it's comedy gold!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:45 AM on April 1, 2003

One omission, Matt: Instead of the "Feeling Lucky" button, you should've had a "Feeling Snarky".

I started surfing the "usual suspects" for April Fools pages before midnight, US Pacific time, and none of them had anything up until I got to near the end of the alphabet and The Wetlog, which redirected to SendBackLiberty.us which revealed itself as the hoax most of us believed, but would dare not say. But most interesting was the revelation of who was behind it which made reading the MetaFilter thread about it a whole different experience.

Matt, have you had any time to do anything SERIOUS in the last two weeks?
posted by wendell at 12:50 AM on April 1, 2003

Brilliant. It isn't April Fools Day out here for another 47 minutes, so I was completely 100% unprepared for this and bought it hook, like and sinker until I came here. Even better than last year's April Fools Day joke!
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:16 AM on April 1, 2003

I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords....
posted by Argyle at 1:26 AM on April 1, 2003

jesus. I switched windows, and thought for a moment that someone had beaten me to the propaganda post I was researching!
posted by kaibutsu at 1:34 AM on April 1, 2003

Aiiiiiii! The white! My eyes!

The goggles do nothing!
posted by sillygwailo at 1:51 AM on April 1, 2003

Very cool Mr.Haughey, very cool.
posted by Tarrama at 1:56 AM on April 1, 2003

Now, about the Metatalk brown....
posted by hama7 at 2:02 AM on April 1, 2003

Google Goggles - buy 'em now!
posted by TheFarSeid at 2:12 AM on April 1, 2003

beautiful!
posted by Nothing at 2:36 AM on April 1, 2003

Good one Matt, but boomchicka predicted it. She said this is what you would do, and you did.
posted by riffola at 2:43 AM on April 1, 2003

Is April Fools Day US-centric or is it 'clelebrated' (as it were) in other countries?
posted by DBAPaul at 3:35 AM on April 1, 2003

Sasha's Lisbon Hotels
Great hotel selection, cheap local rates and friendly local service.

I don't know if that's deliberate, but it's comedy gold!

Actually, Stav, there are some damn fine links there. Why should it surprise you that astute Portuguese hoteliers (or astute Googliers) have realized the potential for holidaymakers here at MeFi?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:53 AM on April 1, 2003

No it's not US-centric (not to the degree Halloween is anyway). Australian Example - catch it quick, April Fool's Day is almost over down under.
posted by Jimbob at 3:54 AM on April 1, 2003

I can't imagine why anyone would do something as peurile as change their front page on April Fool's Day.

[self-link omitted to maintain pretense of subtlety]
posted by rory at 4:23 AM on April 1, 2003

Is April Fools Day US-centric or is it 'clelebrated' (as it were) in other countries?

I thought it was actually April Fish day, and originated in France.
posted by walrus at 4:52 AM on April 1, 2003

So it's Freedom Fools Day?
posted by Summer at 4:56 AM on April 1, 2003

Hey Matt, that's cool and all but I want my share, you know. Either cash or bonds will do.
In Brazil April Fool's Day is celebrated as well and it's called "Dia da Mentira".
posted by 111 at 5:17 AM on April 1, 2003

"...and the MetaFilter community welcomed their liberators with cheers as they danced in the streets!"

Classic Matt!
posted by LouReedsSon at 5:19 AM on April 1, 2003

Genius. My hat's off.
posted by UrbanFigaro at 5:37 AM on April 1, 2003

Well played, clerks.
posted by darukaru at 6:30 AM on April 1, 2003

Well played, clerks.

Ha! How many people on earth get this reference? 4-5, tops?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:14 AM on April 1, 2003

With Google, all things are possible.
posted by maudlin at 8:40 AM on April 1, 2003

Riffy's right, I predicted this last night. Wow, who knew what powers I had? And here you all thought I'd been talking out of my @$$ this whole time. Well, I promise to only use my clairvoyance for good and not evil.

(Now .... when's that next lottery drawing....?)
posted by boomchicka at 9:10 AM on April 1, 2003

Riff and boomchicka, someone posted a link to my mockup of the logo a few days ago (somewhere here). I don't know how they found it, or who showed it to them, since I showed it to like maybe 2 people a month ago when I planned this. Maybe you guys saw that image?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:25 AM on April 1, 2003

I saw the logo, but I didn't think much of it, in fact I don't think much. :)

It was just funny 'cause last night a bunch of us were talking about today's pranks after salmonberry posted her Tree octopi thread. That's when boomchicka said this is what you'd do, and I think jujujive, and a few others agreed that this would be a good prank. I am not sure if she had seen the logo before.
posted by riffola at 9:29 AM on April 1, 2003

I only mention it because I wasn't going to do the joke, since it was leaked, but changed my mind at the last minute.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:35 AM on April 1, 2003

My tree octopi are no joke, but a call to environmental arms - (get it? arms? like octopi have lots of them?)

I love the April Fools page Matt, it's great!
posted by Salmonberry at 10:00 AM on April 1, 2003

Maybe you guys saw that image?

Oh no, I'm not privy to such insider info. I didn't really "predict" the prank in its particular format. I just mentioned that it would be funny if you annouced such a sale, given the recent hubbub over the ads. Call it a mind-meld, I guess. :)
posted by boomchicka at 11:00 AM on April 1, 2003

Seriously Matt, how long did this take? It's so well-coordinated, so well thought out - you must have been working on it forever! Thanks for jolting me - it's the first time I've been wide awake all morning! :D
posted by Lynsey at 11:35 AM on April 1, 2003

Allow me to pile on here: Great job! I did a doubletake and my eyes widened when I saw that familiar layout.
posted by me3dia at 11:53 AM on April 1, 2003

Seriously Matt, how long did this take? It's so well-coordinated, so well thought out - you must have been working on it forever!

Making the graphic is pretty easy in photoshop, and probably took 30 minutes of tinkering to get the look and sizes to be convincing.

For the code, I pretty much just saved a couple pages from google.com, and tweaked as necessary. That was probably 2 hours of work in total to get it fully integrated into MetaFilter.

If anyone likes the theme, there is a white, plain-text theme in the preferences.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:28 PM on April 1, 2003

Screenshot? MeFi seems to be back to normal, now... :(
posted by metrocake at 12:59 PM on April 1, 2003

metrocake, aww don't frown, here's a working version, way better than a screenshot.
posted by riffola at 1:03 PM on April 1, 2003

Matt, the only question I have is how are you gonna top yourself next year? This was priceless.
posted by konolia at 2:11 PM on April 1, 2003

What font is used for the Google logo? Is it TNR? I remember when Google first started up - there was a dreamless.org thread about it. All of the designers were making fun of the the huge, multi-colored, ugly beveled letters and the drop shadow.
posted by iconomy at 4:49 PM on April 1, 2003

I used Palatino, which is a close approximation (note that in the "e", the middle bar of it is horizontal in Palatino, but tilted in the real font) but the actual google font is an obscure one called Catull which I don't own, and couldn't track down a copy of for the joke.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:56 PM on April 1, 2003

Yaaaayyyyy! What a bodacious April Fool's joke! :) :: applauds :: (Thanks, riffola!)
posted by metrocake at 6:40 PM on April 1, 2003

Thanks for the fontography info. I was curious too.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:01 PM on April 1, 2003

Yes, thanks. I never realized until right now that the company I work for uses Catull (which I had never heard of before) for their logo. I always liked the way the serifs taper off to razor sharp points, but I never realized that it was the same font that Google uses. The lower case e in our logo is tipped to the left about 20 degrees; everyone refers to it as The Lazy E. This is a cool little bit of typo triv (for me, anyway).
posted by iconomy at 7:44 PM on April 1, 2003

Indeed! Getting the typography right is important when doing parodies and things. TNR, indeed. :) In the same way Arial is the same as Helvetica, I guess...
posted by GrahamVM at 1:04 AM on April 3, 2003