hotelicopter

Six April Fools' Day launches that were real

Every year the tech world trips over itself to create a myriad fake products for user chuckles and some easy press. There's also a very small percentage of companies that decide to launch real products. We've rounded up six of those sites and services below, as well as some honorable April Fools' Day-related news events.

1. Google Gmail

One of the most notable April Fools' Day launches was Google's Gmail in 2004. Back then, a gigabyte of storage for a Web e-mail service was a big deal. This was especially true given that competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo were charging for extra in-box space.

Gmail wasn't open to everyone though. Its small, 1,000-user private beta test, which expanded through the company doling out user invites from time to time, became a hot tech ticket, and one that spawned an entire ecosystem of invite-trading economies.

Gmail has since continued to expand how much service it gives users, which is now up to 7.4GB.

2. Yahoo Sideline

Yahoo launched its Twitter tracking tool Sideline exactly one year ago, and it's still up and running. The Adobe Air-based app lets users keep an eye on Twitter in real time. Users can enter in search queries, and see them stream in across multiple tabs. The software is meant to be running all the time, though it cannot do some basic things like allow you to post to Twitter, or quickly follow a user that shows up in the results.

See our hands-on with it from last year.

3. Scribd's "Paper to iPaper"

A scanning-by-mail service from a digital documents service? It seemed too outlandish that a company would eat the cost of scanning a giant stack of your documents in order to get them in its database. But that's just what Web document-sharing tool Scribd launched on April Fools' Day in 2008. We thought it was a joke and so did our readers.

The service, which was quietly killed off last year, worked pretty well in our testing (see the result). The only big downsides were that you never got your physical documents back, and you had to pay for it to be shipped to Scribd's scanning headquarters.… Read more

Four lesser-known travel search sites for summer vacation

You might be using Expedia or Orbitz to plan your vacation (if you're taking one) this year, but there are some lesser-known travel search sites that could help you plan a better and less expensive trip. These sites will still help you plan your vacation, but they do it in a slightly different way that should help you save some cash.

Fly.com Fly.com was recently acquired by travel media firm, TravelZoo. Since then, the site has become a great place to find cheap flights across the U.S.

Unlike Expedia, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, and countless other popular travel search sites, Fly.com doesn't require you to buy airline tickets on its pages. Once you input where you're leaving from and where you're going, the site finds flights from the airlines themselves. After you pick your flight, Fly.com redirects you to the airline's site where the fares might be a little cheaper. You can buy the flight directly from the airline.

Fly.com adds another layer to flight search by redirecting you to a different site. But by simultaneously searching through all the airlines and eliminating any hidden fees imposed by travel search sites, you should be able to save money with each trip by using Fly.com. I have.

Hotelicopter Hotelicopter searches and aggregates results from sites like Hotels.com and Priceline to find you the best deals on both domestic and international hotels.

Hotelicopter should save you some money, since it finds results from over 30 different travel planning sites across the Web. Once you input a destination city, the site returns a list of hotels in that area. You can get information about the hotels and pick which place is best for you. Like Fly.com, Hotelicopter doesn't handle the booking itself, so it will redirect you to the site with the best deal.

Hotelicopter might not be as convenient as services where you can find and book hotels without leaving the site, but in this economy, saving every last dime counts. And based on my experience with the service, Hotelicopter will help you find you a great deal. It's a fine alternative to more popular travel search sites.… Read more

Hotelicopter is real, though simply a travel search engine

Hotelicopter, the April Fools' Day joke about a helicopter that doubled as a hotel, turned out to be fake. A week later though, the same company that successfully played the joke on most of the Internet has launched a real product with the same name.

Hotelicopter the travel search engine is not nearly as exciting a concept as a converted Soviet chopper-turned-air hotel, but it does an admirable job at scouring the Web to find you deals on hotel bookings. It searches and aggregates the results from more than 30 different hotel deals sites like Priceline, Hotels.com, and Booking.… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 941: Urine nation

The Streamy awards made me think of how Hollywood and the video bloggers are starting to come together. It made Natali think about urination. So, maybe they need to rethink branding. We also tell you how violent video games will make you see better. For real.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 941

Happy fourth birthday! I can’t believe Buzz Out Loud has been around for four years. Here’s hoping for four more! –Joseph in Ohio http://buzzoutloud.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_1

Streamy Awards dominated by Felica Day http://newteevee.com/2009/03/29/joss-whedon-felicia-day-and-a-pile-of-streamys/

Google gives … Read more