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I feel like they must have someone working on the April fool's prank year-round.

pearjuice 13y ago
Someone? More like an entire division with an own budget. Looking at the video of this gig, they have a helicopter(!), a crew of actors (maybe employees) a full-sized camera team and a few GFX-artists. It's understandable why Google is one of the "hottest" companies in tech right now.
- rkuykendall-com 13y ago
  Technically, wouldn't that just be... the advertising department? I mean, writing, production, distribution, GOALS, are all... the exact same as advertising. Only better, because good April Fools projects are awesome.
- bri3d 13y ago
  I don't think the helicopter is a full-sized helicopter - cheap, miniaturized cameras and control systems mean you can get quite good helicopter-quality RC-copter/multicopter/RC plane aerial shoots for a few thousand dollars commercially, or buy the hardware and fly it yourself for probably in the ~$1k hardware range plus the time needed to learn how to get good shots. I found the resource involved in this pretty crazy as well, though. Definitely a lot more than most companies would spend on April Fool's day, and I doubt it's their only stunt either.
- tytso 13y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of the work was contributed by engineers using 20% time (no, it's not dead) who wanted to make the April Fool's hack happen. I've seen Cambridge Googlers (from the ITA acquisition) come in over the weekend playing with an RC helicopter to get some video footage of the old ITA building and the old ITA logo before they moved into their new digs in the expanded Google campus in Kendall Square. And they did it just for fun! (BTW, trying to keep a RC helicopter steady in the face of winds near things like cliffs or buildings is not so easy....) I'm sure Google provided support in some fashion, but very often in terms of engineering effort, these sorts of thing are 100% done by passionate Googlers using 20% time. Often, people who want to make things like this happen will recruit people outside of their immediate product area, who have special expertise that might be needed. There are definitely people at Google with private pilot's licenses, and almost certainly Googlers who can fly (real) helicopters.... One of the really neat things about working for Google is getting to hang out with people who are way smarter than you, and who often have all sorts of interesting skills and talents you don't have --- yet. :-)

Someone? More like an entire division with an own budget. Looking at the video of this gig, they have a helicopter(!), a crew of actors (maybe employees) a full-sized camera team and a few GFX-artists. It's understandable why Google is one of the "hottest" companies in tech right now.

rkuykendall-com 13y ago
Technically, wouldn't that just be... the advertising department? I mean, writing, production, distribution, GOALS, are all... the exact same as advertising. Only better, because good April Fools projects are awesome.
bri3d 13y ago
I don't think the helicopter is a full-sized helicopter - cheap, miniaturized cameras and control systems mean you can get quite good helicopter-quality RC-copter/multicopter/RC plane aerial shoots for a few thousand dollars commercially, or buy the hardware and fly it yourself for probably in the ~$1k hardware range plus the time needed to learn how to get good shots. I found the resource involved in this pretty crazy as well, though. Definitely a lot more than most companies would spend on April Fool's day, and I doubt it's their only stunt either.
tytso 13y ago
It wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of the work was contributed by engineers using 20% time (no, it's not dead) who wanted to make the April Fool's hack happen. I've seen Cambridge Googlers (from the ITA acquisition) come in over the weekend playing with an RC helicopter to get some video footage of the old ITA building and the old ITA logo before they moved into their new digs in the expanded Google campus in Kendall Square. And they did it just for fun! (BTW, trying to keep a RC helicopter steady in the face of winds near things like cliffs or buildings is not so easy....) I'm sure Google provided support in some fashion, but very often in terms of engineering effort, these sorts of thing are 100% done by passionate Googlers using 20% time. Often, people who want to make things like this happen will recruit people outside of their immediate product area, who have special expertise that might be needed. There are definitely people at Google with private pilot's licenses, and almost certainly Googlers who can fly (real) helicopters.... One of the really neat things about working for Google is getting to hang out with people who are way smarter than you, and who often have all sorts of interesting skills and talents you don't have --- yet. :-)