Google has always been known for its great April Fools' Day pranks. In fact, it was Google who arguably started the pranking tradition in the tech industry (which in 2013 includes Twitter, Netflix, Hulu and others). All the way back in 2000, Google first pranked users by telling them they had created a new program that allowed users to search with their minds. Google has generally gotten good press for its efforts. But they hit a bump this year.
For one of this year's pranks, Google made a video saying that it was going to shut down YouTube. What was meant to be a lighthearted joke -- over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month, YouTube isn't going anywhere -- turned into a bit of a PR issue. Pretending to kill YouTube seemed to remind many, or at least many who have Twitter accounts, that Google is actually killing Google Reader. Last month, Google upset a whole lot of devoted users when it announced that it isplanning to discontinue the RSS reader, the unspoken reason being to focus users on Google+. Just when that fire had died down, Google found a way to reignite it.
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