What did the Internet giants do on April Fools' Day?

Editor’s Note:

Although this year's April Fools' Day was lackluster, apart from Tesla's "announcement" of making watches that caused its stock price to rise and deceived Reuters, this year's April Fools' Day was far less fun than last year's for major companies.

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Every April Fools’ Day, technology companies launch various products that are described in a very serious manner and are difficult to distinguish between true and false. Last year, the April Fools’ Day ideas that come to my mind were Alipay’s Kongfu and Baidu’s Kuaisou.

This year, everyone is still having fun in the festival. There is even a joke online: If no one cheats me during the day, I will watch the news broadcast at night. Now it seems that there is no need to wait until the evening to make up for it. Major technology companies have already made moves during the day.

When the false is presented as true, the true becomes false; when the true is presented as false, the false becomes true. Or, the lies that can deceive people are basically 70% true and 30% false. The truth is that behind the lies, there are often more truths. Today, let's look for the opposite.

The specific content released by Tencent on April Fools' Day includes: Tencent will move to Antarctica (credibility: zero stars, fun: five stars), WeChat will add a smell recognition function (credibility: zero stars, fun: three stars), Tencent Watch Manager will be launched soon (credibility: one star, fun: two stars), and Tiantian Ptu developed by Tencent will launch a "one-click makeup removal" function (credibility: one star, fun: one star).

The truth revealed by Tencent's April Fool's Day joke is that Tencent is now resting easy. They don't need to smuggle any information into the news they release, and they just need to be creative and happy. They are really free-spirited. Generally speaking, Internet companies have to resign some employees when they move, but Tencent is actually moving to Antarctica. The conclusion is that they are just teasing you.

WeChat's odor recognition is also not reliable, and WeChat doesn't need to show its presence today. Watch Butler is a small expectation of Tencent. Of course, Tencent rarely touches hardware, so don't take it seriously. By the way, think about the fact that Tencent's Butler series of products may benefit from this publicity. As for the idea of ​​one-click uninstallation, which plagiarizes Japanese dark products, forget it. Since it is impossible to reverse restore photos technically, it is better not to have such applications as artificially shrinking eyes and adding noise to skin.

The specific products released by Baidu on April Fools' Day are the smart wearable device Baidu Zhuhuan (credibility: one star, fun: two stars), the smart pillow Baidu "huhu" (credibility three stars, fun four stars), and the Baidu wallet "Xinfu" (credibility zero stars, fun: three stars).

Overall, all the ideas this year are not as eye-catching as last year's Kuaisou. In particular, the appearance of Baidu's bead ring is really unbearable for me, a Libra. As for the fact that users can freely disassemble and combine each bead, different beads are equipped with different functional modules, such as: health monitoring, motion trajectory monitoring, beauty photography, real-time search and translation, home smart control, couple interaction, holographic projection and other novel functions, this is basically funny~. Can I understand that these are all things Baidu wants to do but has not yet figured out?

Baidu's "HuHu" is a product that can be real or fake. Now wristbands can detect sleep. If you choose a high-quality pillow and combine it with sleep monitoring hardware and software, it should be quite popular after it goes online. Anyway, Baidu has also released some small hardware before, so it doesn't matter if they make a few more. I personally look forward to the launch of the new HuHu product.

Baidu Wallet's "Xinfu" is not as eye-catching as Alipay's "Kongfu" last year, but the appearance of Baidu Wallet itself represents Baidu's hope. Alipay and WeChat Pay are already ahead in the payment field. Since they cannot be surpassed, it is also good to have a sense of presence. It doesn't matter whether you use Xinfu or any other payment method.

Baidu's truth is that it will further strengthen its layout in smart products, and it hopes to put a more distinct technology label on them. Although Baidu Wallet, which is not as ideal as reality, has developed so-so, it must also come forward to show its presence. In other words, the beads represent a bright future, HuHu represents a reality that can be reached, and the wallet represents a past that is regrettable but cannot be escaped.

Speaking of Alibaba, this year Alibaba launched the Alibaba Cloud Matrix+ project (credibility: zero stars, fun: four stars) and the Traffic Cat plan (credibility: two stars, fun: three stars).

The Matrix+ project is to connect 1 million smartphones through the Internet to form a powerful supercomputer to assist scientific research that affects the future of mankind. Alibaba Cloud itself connects cheap calculators to provide computing services. If it is really possible to connect and utilize the limited resources of mobile phones, it would be very interesting. Although it is basically impossible, it is fun at least. The truth behind this is that Alibaba Cloud has a strong need to improve its tone recently.

Another Alibaba project, the "Traffic Cat" plan, allows users to bring cat food out to summon wild cats, and use free traffic. This is a fairly standard idea, continuing Tmall's consistent style. Behind this is Tmall's intention to change, but it is not clear about the direction. So finding such a marginal planner is equivalent to "haha".

The new company formed by the merger of internet upstart Didi and Kuaidi launched two product information on April Fools' Day, School Bus No. 1 (credibility: four stars, fun: four stars) and Didi Express (credibility: four stars, fun: three stars). Overall, it is difficult to tell the truth from the false in these two news, because although they were launched on April Fools' Day, I think these two products are completely ready to be launched.

When I first saw the information about the No. 1 school bus, I didn't feel much, but the reactions of young parents in my circle of friends were unexpected. Many families are restricted by geographical location when choosing schools. If there is a safe and reliable school bus, it will really solve the headaches of many parents. In fact, travel needs have been highly segmented and verticalized. Whether it is Didi Kuaidi or other startups, these needs should be met as soon as possible.

Didi Express itself does not have too many technical or resource barriers, because I have used Didi to ask the driver to help me get my ID card. If Didi is willing, this is a plus based on the existing functions. Anyway, you can call a person and a car from the Internet. As for what to do with this person and this car, as long as the driver is willing, everyone can discuss it. Buying ice cream and sending flowers are trivial matters, and visiting the elderly in another place is also possible.

The truth behind Didi Kuaidi's promotion of these two new products is that the company is eager to improve its brand tone. Previously, the two became famous for the subsidy war, and there was always the shadow of Alibaba and Tencent behind them. With the merger of the companies, they have gained real independence. As a mature and independent individual, they continue to make their own voices and show their own characteristics. In essence, while it is developing rapidly, efforts in the technical dimension are also being carried out simultaneously. For example, Kuaidi's big data "Horizon" has reached the 2.0 era. In order to regulate travel, Didi studied "The Wealth of Nations", but these efforts were overshadowed by the loud marketing drums. If nothing unexpected happens, it will do more to reshape its image.

There are many other cases that I cannot list any more. If there are any that still linger in my mind for a few days, I will list them again. If there are none that are interesting enough, I will not mention them.