YouTube’s goal has been to select the best video in the world, but the world found this out on March 31, only a few hours before Google pulled the plug.
The plan was to shut down YouTube at midnight on that day by stopping any new submissions from the video service’s millions of users. Pulling the plug is not easy when people are uploading 70 hours of video footage each minute, but sometimes, extreme measure need to be taken.
Upon doing so, the website’s staff, along a huge number of voluntaries (mostly people who have starred in YouTube videos, too), was supposed to watch each and every video that was uploaded in the 8 years since the site was born. More than that, the ones watching the videos were also supposed to state their point of view. The second part of the plan was to do the selection of the best video in the next decade and relaunch YouTube in 2023, with that video only.
In an attempt to take people’s mind off such tragic news, the company that went many times against its “Don’t be evil” motto launched Google Nose, a new feature of its search engine. More precisely, this would help people to answer the millennial question: “What’s that smell?” This strategy is similar to the one Google employed after taking down Reader. In a matter of days, Google launched Keep (an Android and desktop app that rivals Evernote), hoping that people would forget about Reader, an app that stored years of their lives, basically.
More than that, Google implemented a Treasure Map overlay for Google Maps. Perhaps they think that such an innovative feature would help people forget of the laughs and cries generated by YouTube videos. The only good thing about YouTube being shut down would be that the world has a chance to turn its ears to high-quality music, leaving behind such atrocities as Justin Bieber and Nickelback (I’d say that it isn’t a coincidence that both these “artists” come from Canada, but on the other hand, this country gave the world RUSH and Devin Townsend).
(Possibly belated) Happy April Fools’ Day!
In other news, the latest video posted on the AllRecipes YouTube channel teaches people how to put together a rather challenging recipe. I’m only going to say that the video is called Hot Boiling Water Recipe.
If you liked this post, please check the 8-bit Google Maps and the top 100 April Fools’ pranks and gadgets.
