Annual reminder: the development effort spent adding an animated minion GIF to Gmail could have kept Google Reader running all year

source: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/715820699215138817

Wow, what an incredibly, obviously bad idea. I spotted this last night and immediately realized how this would go down. If you have 900 million users (as gmail does) and you add a button right next to the send button that also has the word "send" on it, you are going to have a significant numbers of users send emails using that button! AND it adds a gif AND it archives the email thread AND those features aren't explained when you hover over the button! I have a feeling the vast majority of gmail users don't know how to find their archived email threads, so those users will never see the replies to the email they sent. The gmail team was asleep at the wheel on this one.

I feel like no one is addressing one of the biggest problems with these April Fool's things: they're just not funny. PigeonRank might have been cute 10+ years ago, but now it's the same joke over and over.

You know how in your group of friends there's one or two who are just super funny and make everyone laugh out loud? But then there's your other friend who every once in a while cracks a joke and you just kinda smile a bit? Yeah, that's who's putting together these pranks.

Wow... I was absolutely sure that this backfire story WAS the April Fools' joke. It just seemed so farfetched. The animated gif I could understand, but actually blocking all future replies? That's where I figured that nobody would ever actually implement something so stupid and dangerous.

Really an immature oversight not just in the tone, but in the actual understanding of the product. It's a utility for most users.

What if AT&T just played a fart sound in the middle of a call if you hit a button on your screen? Of course that would go wrong. How did they think this was any different? They're not just some startup anymore.

Don't like ads? Didn't like this prank? Don't like it when the UI changes? Use an email client. Like a boss.

Not sure if this prank/feature appeared on google's "For Work" (paid offering), but if it did, that would be sucky.

However on the free gmail side of things - not to be a jerk about this - but perhaps this should remind users that they are not the real customers for google...and that free platforms like this do in fact come with baggage. I'm not saying google intentionally meant to screw over their users (I totally get this was all meant in jest). But what incentive does google have other than saying "Oops, sorry". Any expectations for compensation i think are silly; and many users forget that. Does it suck that someone lost their job because of this? Hellz yeah, no doubt about that! But can we really expect google to do anything else except shut down this prank even if only after-the-fact? Again, it sucks, but this should serve to show/remind some of those users that these free platforms are not like your local electric/water utility, and should not be fully depended upon, certainly not for such important things as jobs, etc.

Verified - this is true and still working for me.

1. You press "SEND+drop mic" button (note how close the buttons are: http://imgur.com/5gBZVOh )

2. It says message sent and archived: http://imgur.com/GpOhiLY

3. Go to other recipient email, it contains attachment of mic drop image. http://imgur.com/Bs0iISe

4. Reply and it doesn't show up in inbox because conversation was archived (only accessible from "All Mail")

Just to think how much control google (or any other operator of free platform/service) has over the content of any messages pumped through their platform: Instead of google inserting that minion GIF, what if they simply added "...Not" to the end of every email?

Fictional example #1: Hi everyone, We're having a baby!...Not (Then google appends "...Not" to the end.)

Fictional example #2: Hi everyone, Grandma passed away...Not

Fictional example #3: Hi everyone, We're moving away to city/state/country XYZ!...Not

Fictional example #4: Hi everyone, We're getting a divorce!...Not

Encrypted messaging or not, that's a lot of control to have (by a provider) over what users send out. Or maybe i'm thinking too pessimistically?

If somebody told me it's meta April fools day this year I would believe it.

I really do not like what Google did here.

If anything, they have introduced unnecessary code to an already complex application that people actually use. More code means more bugs. They should take Microsofts 'no more easter eggs' approach and stop dicking around.

Google sabotaging their own product just for a few laughs is a great way of reminding people that they don't really care about providing any services other than selling ads.

Also, what's the point of this prank when Gmail has a global audience? Only a minority of users will be aware that their tools might fail today because it's April Fools in the US.

Typical Google. Sending UX down the drain in a whim

Apparently none of their "interviewed to death" workers noticed the potential ways this could backfire

I think the worst thing about this is that once you hit the button, you wouldn't get any more replies from that thread. Is this really how it worked — that Gmail essentially shut you out of subsequent replies to the conversation in a non-undoable way? (Edit: Maybe you could revive the ability to get replies by un-archiving the thread? Does anybody know?) It just makes explaining yourself in the event of a mistake (and even viewing the fallout) that much harder.

It also looks like they put the button where "Send" would normally go. Mistakes seem inevitable; this is pretty mind-boggling.

I think the lesson here isn't so much about April Fools as it is about user interface design. Google put an orange warning on the button to let users know that the button would do something different, and people still clicked it out of habit. We users simply don't expect that buttons will suddenly change functionality. Google felt that the warnings they had in place were sufficient. Clearly they weren't.

Maybe the Gmail team should realize we're all not children.

Fun side effect of long-running AJAX apps: even though Google disabled the feature, it will still be live for everyone who has a gmail window since (at least) yesterday. The feature must have had a timed activation.

You have to refresh the page. And apparently even that may not be enough. I Ctrl-R refreshed in Firefox and still saw the button (aggressive caching?). I closed the tab and loaded gmail in a new tab, and finally button went away.

I sent an accidental mic drop email as a response to an important conversation I was having regarding my career. Thanks a lot google.

>Everyone will get your message, but that's the last you'll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won't see it."

Soo... they again purposely broke the whole idea behind email?

I saw this last night while on a call with a friend. I emailed him and asked him to reply and saw that I didn't get the reply, and we both agreed that this was a spectacularly bad idea. About an hour later I saw my wife hovering over the mic drop button and warned her that she probably didn't want to use it. I love that Google's brand is fun and whimsical, but there are some things that are not OK for such a critical service. It's like if the electric company sent a signal down the wire on July 4th to make every AC motor start humming the national anthem.

please make this an actual feature in labs. lose the gif and have it send an auto reply to all future responses indicating I am no longer reading the email thread. in the auto-reply have a link leading to how to use bcc

This makes me wonder what the process is for these "jokes". Has anyone here been involved in an April Fools day joke that was as visible as this or on as important a product as Gmail? Where does the idea originate? How many people are involved in its approval? How much time and attention is paid to it? I think the answers to these type of questions would be pretty interesting.

We need an April Fools day postmortem.

I think this is the actual April Fools' prank: the story about the failed prank. Nobody sane will approve a product feature such as this.

I think this article itself is an April fools joke.

I believe we have all witnessed the end of April Fools Day jokes at Google.

If your brogrammer idea means some poor sysadmin is going to get a bunch of panicked questions, then don't do the damn joke.

The two autoplaying ads on the site may be worse than the mic-drop feature.

I definitely got a layover notice telling me about it last night around 8PM CST.

>to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off.

I did enjoy the it's a feature/bug dual language though.

"Google is bringing back Google Reader", that would be a better April Fool's joke.

Congratulations Google, you played yourself.

I thought when reading about that "Drop the mic" joke, that gmail will temporarily drop recording from the users microphone, and will not send the audio to google, so they won't be able to listen what is spoken in that room. I thought that's a neat feature, unfortunately only temporary.

Romanian government used that tactic for some years on all old cable phones, until google brought that feature to the masses with the new smartphone and laptop technology.

Does every single service of every single company need to have an April Fools' joke? The internet is incredibly obnoxious on April 1sts nowadays.

If your "professional relationship" is "destroyed" by something like this then it wasn't a real relationship anyway

Are we sure these stories aren't the actual joke? Did anyone here actually see this feature in person?

Well, there goes Google's cute April Fool's jokes from here on out.

Did anyone take a screenshot of the Mic Drop button before it was removed? There are GIFs showing the sent email with the minion, but could find any showing the /button/ in action.

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I wish I would have saw this feature before it was taken down so I would have a better understanding of why people were accidentally clicking it.

From now on when you want to illustrate the difference between "knowing things" and "wisdom" just link here.

I'm just gonna leave these here...

https://www.fastmail.com

Fools day in April sucks. I haven't even got mic dropped yet ;_;

So in other words the prank worked.

April Fools day never claimed not to be devious.

Did the button actually operate as advertised? It wouldn't surprise me if it did nothing, and the real April fools joke were planted fake outrage "I got fired over this!" tweets.

I though that it was a really well done metaprank.

I'm not seeing this in my UI, is it an independent april fool's joke here? ah I see it's supposedly been taken down, now I don't know if it actually ever existed.

Ya just don't mess with peoples email.

I honestly thought this was an April fools article from the newspaper and the links would never lead back to Google.

Would be crazy if it was another level deep of April Fools.

what a terrible idea for a prank. I can't believe this made it through all channels and got the OK.

I think people should learn to read instructions and to search for explanations when they don't know something

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People lack sense of humor :S

hint: Thunderbird, K9, Roundcube and Rainloop.

"Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs."

It wasn't a bug it was a feature. Maybe I'm too much of an engineer but I HATE when PM's/managers/PR representatives just classify all unexpected and undesired behaviour as "bugs". A "bug" implies I made a mistake. I didn't make a mistake. I developed EXACTLY what you told me, after numerous rounds of confirmation and feedback loops. It's not a bug if it's doing exactly what it was supposed to.

Wow, what a bunch of babies. I'm sorry, I just don't see how sending a "mic drop" email could ruin so many lives in just a few hours. It's not like it sent some NSFW gif or random insults or something. Accidentally sent one? Just send a new email to the person with a link to an article about it and say, oops, I got pranked, sorry?

hint: Thunderbird, K9, Roundcube and Rainloop.

[insensitive/ignorant comment withdrawn]

Good thing I use an email client like Sparrow to spare me from this kind of fiasco.

Seriously? If this isn't just a meta joke, who is dumb enough to write serious emails on April 1...

The most egregious part of this April fools joke is the use of minions. The only thing I am capable of thinking of when I see a minion is the absolute most common soccer mom in the world interacting with the 'internet'.

It is the last thing I want to see in an email, business or personal. Let alone at the top of an email. Let alone at the top of an email I cannot respond to. If I can't respond to it, I don't want to see whatever it was no matter what it was.

Not a good idea, minions aren't funny. If Google hadn't screwed with the standard behaviour of their email product it's still not a good idea.

Is this an April Fools joke itself?

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Was it real or it's a meta joke?

"Please return all your mail to Google for a full refund."

It's a free product...you got what you paid for!

I love how so many people are butthurt about this. Google owes you nothing. They are a business and you are their customer using their product for free. If you don't like it, GTFO.

I think this article is a joke, making it a really good April fools joke. This is a real Google style April fools joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZPNwZex9s

Stuff like this makes me consider less about ever applying to Google. idk, they've got smart people at their company, but there seems to be an underlying disconnect with real everyday users. I think autistic would be too harsh to describe their collective mindset...

Let's just say for the sake of argument that this were a serious new feature and not an April 1 joke. Like a fast reply or something that could cause similar outcomes.

Are they allowed to rearrange the buttons then? Or should they never change the UI in fear that users might bump the wrong button due to muscle memory.

If I try some time-math:

The article posted to a UK site with a byline that says "Posted 43 minutes ago". At the time of writing this comment; 43 minutes was ~2pm in the UK, give or take a few minutes.

The article also has an update on 11:50. That update either came ~2 hours before the article was posted, or 8-9 hours in the future.

So, I'm going to guess the whole article is fake.

Anyone else thought about the fact that now that they have removed this feature, they have put the "job death" sentence on those that accidentally used it and would have had a reasonable explanation to their boss?

"Look, this button is right here and I thought it was send." Now a non-technical boss will just assume that person is lying because no button is in gmail anymore. Thanks Google. Stay Classy.

I was wondering if this would have some serious legal repercussions for Google.

In the US I believe normal mail cannot be substantially modified in transit, and that this is a Federal offense. For instance for a postal worker to open letters and insert cartoons because it was April Fool's day he would not only lose his job but also be subject to prosecution.

Certainly an email server is in some way exempt as it is possible for software to add headers to an email, but if the server modifies the message and the manner of communication substantially, there might be serious legal ramifications to this practical joke of Google. Especially since this joke impeded the response in a way similar to scratching out the return address of a postal letter.

The very fact that Google thought it worthwhile to do such a thing with personal communication absolutely boggles the mind. Any responsible organization would be insane put their email on their servers after such a stunt.

<obligatory rant about April Fools day>

April Fools is such a collective waste of time. Not only does it lower productivity of many people for a day, some "pranks" actually take days to prepare. I imagine that producing SnoopaVision for Youtube [1] wasn't exactly cheap.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/snoopavision

TL;DR "people are careless and stupid, use a new feature on important messages without checking to see what it does first, then whine about it when they get burned"

The modern world is pathetic.