April 1, 2014: Google decided to play a series pranks on its users, by using its several high-tech tricks to boost up the spirit of ‘April Fools Day’. As Gmail is a widely used email service, Google smartly tricked its netizens by introducing the ‘Gmail Shelfie’ concept this year. Google claimed that individuals could convert their ‘selfie’ photos into their Gmail custom hompage.
Its casual official blog mentioned, ‘As soon as one logs in to Gmail, a post will pop up saying, "Got an awesome selfie? Upgrade it to a Shelfie! Simply open or refresh Gmail on the desktop and share it with your friends. (Gmail Shelfie is rolling out over the next few hours.) If you're looking for inspiration, set your theme to Gmail's top trending Shelfies. You can also see who's currently trending on our Google+ page."
Google also smartly marketed this prank concept by announcing worldwide mentioning ‘Gmail Shelfie is built on the idea that you shouldn’t be selfish with your selfie. With just a few clicks, your mom, your aunt, or that girl you have a crush on can set your Shelfie as their Gmail theme so they can enjoy checking, reading, and writing emails while seeing your friendly face in the background.’ It also posted up a casual made-up selfie Gmail custom page to make this prank more believable.
Getting excited by this exclusive option, several netizens are fooled, thus helping google to accomplish its goal of playing pranks and increased its site traffic eventually.
