Top 10 April Fools' Day Joke Web Sites

8. PodShave and PodShaveLady

Sometimes, a prank's premise is so plausible that you have to ask yourself: "Why isn't there a product like that?" When iLounge posted breaking news of a new video-playing iPod V from Apple on March 31, 2004, no one took the bait. The real video iPod, which was just around the corner, made too much sense for the iPod V prank to be funny.

PodGear.net's PodShave and PodShave Lady purported to turn an iPod Classic and an iPodMini, respectively, into an electric razor, for men and for women.

But wags at the now-defunct PodGear.net had more success with their electric-razor attachments for iPod Classic or Mini. Several Apple news sites, including PC World's sister publication Macworld, posted tongue-in-cheek reviews of these ersatz iPod accessories, leaving many wondering, "Does my back hair need grooming--and can I dance to it?"

7. Wikipædia Brittanica

If we can believe Wikipedia's own Wiki page on the subject (at first unqualified, but subsequently clearly labeled as a joke), the popular user-created reference site was nearly absorbed by venerable dead-tree competitor Encyclopædia Britannica on April 1, 2005. Despite the promise of handsome severance packages for the founders of what was slated to become known as Wikimædia, the deal likely fell through--perhaps due to the onerous financial burden it would have placed on contributors to the newly merged publications. Though future costs were estimated at an astronomical £99.97 for each page creation or edit, the new Wikipædia promised to offset them by offering contributors a chance to win a rare photo of Margaret Thatcher from her days on the burlesque circuit.

6. Water on Mars

NASA logo.

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day tends to be a beautiful high-resolution image of a far-off nebula, one of the moons of Saturn, or perhaps a comet streaking through the heavens. But the most startlingly unexpected image in the Astronomy Picture of the Day archive may be a photograph dated April 1, 2005, that conclusively establishes the presence of water on Mars.

In other space-related news, alert readers of the ordinarily factual Space Daily news site were surprised to learn on the same day that President Bush had canceled the Space Shuttle program.