It’s not quite April Fool’s Day yet, but someone may have just pulled one of the biggest pranks on Google fans yet. Google Xistence is nothing more than a hoax by someone who clearly has extra time on his hands and isn’t quite sure what to do with it.
My boss was listening to NPR on his drive to work, and apparently they discussed this new application as though it were really being offered by Google Inc. Although it wasn’t quite the War of the Worlds broadcast, it definitely sparked some curiosity.
While my boss explained this application to me I found the video and watched it in utter disbelief. What everyday user would take social media so serious to the point that they themselves couldn’t interact with others and needed a system to do it for them? It’s like auto-tweets on steroids with a dose of amnesia, taking anti-social to the next level.
According to the LA Times’ Blog, Philipp Drössler was the creator of this and, even tweeted a link on a phony Google Labs twitter account linking back to the site that is now listed as a “Phishing Scam!”
There are many security implications, especially considering the fact that users were given the option to plug in their account information for sites like Facebook & Twitter.
Fortunately, a Google spokesman confirmed that “Google is not affiliated in any way” with the site.
So, what’s the moral of this story? Don’t always believe the hype!
Related posts:
3 Comments
Just to clear a few things up: There was never an option to actually sign-up on the site – both the login and password fields were disabled, and there was nothing but the front page, so no user data of any kind was transmitted, which severely limits the possible security implications. Also, this was an art project I had planned for quite some time now, although since nobody paid me, I think you could say I did it in my free time
I’d love to know which show on NPR referenced Xistence – does your boss remember when he heard it, maybe? Cheers!
Philipp,
I heard it on NPR Morning Edition. They briefly mentioned it towards the end of the show so they did not know that Xistence did not actually belong to Google. It was mentioned under the Google name, they even mentioned the slogan you have in the video “Because life is too short for social interaction!”
-Duran
Thanks a lot!