[angdis]

WTF?

Google maps, for me and I think for vast numbers of users, has always been a zero-bullshit application to use when you need to quickly find specific location or directions, where _pertinent_ information is displayed and "frills" stay tucked behind menu selections.

Even a small amount of cruft degrades the user experience. I don't need stupid ass April Fool's day pranks from Google. It is not cute and I am not amused. Corporations suck at humor anyway.

Even more disturbing is that somebody at Google dreamed this up, and got together a team of engineers to crank this out. And at what cost in labour? 100's of thousands? Don't they have better things to do?

[DanBC]

> Even more disturbing is that somebody at Google dreamed this up, and got together a team of engineers to crank this out. And at what cost in labour? 100's of thousands? Don't they have better things to do?

It's an advert to recruit staff. Google wants good staff; that costs money; a good way to attract some staff is to show fun neat projects.

[angdis]

I don't see how an unfunny internet-scale April Fool's prank recruits top-talent.

What does it recruit for? People who have a bad sense of humor?

... and yes, I am still bitter about google reader.

[dev_jim]

Lighten up.

[napoleond]

FWIW, it looks like they just switched out some textures and put an overlay on street view. Maybe one day of design work and one day of dev work, at the most (and a half hour meeting with their bosses, I guess). I don't really find this particular prank that hilarious, but it certainly didn't cost anyone hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[danesparza]

Dude. Seriously? Lighten the fuck up.

It's April Fucking Fools.

[brokenparser]

Haters gonna hate