Google TV Beta - The Elaborate Hoax That Fooled Thousands
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Published 2021-05-31
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In 2007, Google secretly entered the beta development stages of a revolutionary on-demand TV service that completely changed the industry. At least, that's what people initially thought. Because the entire thing turned out to be an elaborate hoax. Today's video takes you back to the 2000s and explores one of the earliest prank channels on YouTube: Infinite Solutions.
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All Comments (21)
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Around 2008 my friend's father had a cellphone wrapped in Ethernet cable on his desk. It always stood out as odd to me but after all these years, mystery solved.
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If Infinte Solutions were still around before 2019, imagine making a hoax about a video gaming stream service made by Google, they'll probably pick a better name than Stadia.
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Despite the fact that this was a joke, the idea was actually pretty damn innovative for 2007 and pretty much predicted how many of us use on demand streaming services today. I wouldn't be surprised if a tech company saw this and thought "Wait...they might be on to something.."
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Remember watching Infinite Solutions and believing everything on their channel at the time. Kept trying to do this "easter egg" on Gmail at the time. Mark and his crew with their humor and production values were ahead of their time lol
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Petition to make "Numberless Fixes with Michael MJD" a real thing
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This was the "Faked Anti-Piracy Screen" trend of the 2000s. (1:43)
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Infinite Solutions: Satirical Videos with professionalism
Clickbaiters: Fake Engagement, Oversaturated expressions and unprofessional bait and switch tactic -
Good old Fatal Farm. They made some really funny videos.
A lot of people forget that around that time, there were many TV shows like Computer Chronicles, Dotto's Data Cafe, and others that released TV shows or segments in this format. Part of what made this series so believable was that it mimicked that since forgotten format very well. -
I had never heard of this channel but I love it in a way that is hard to explain. It's like troll royalty. Getting people to do something dumb but harmless, possibly never realising it was a joke. The cleverness, the acting, even the small number of videos elevates the experience.
Not all kings wear crowns. -
This guy wasn't a hoaxer, he was a futurist.
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Actually, as a paleontology student, I can tell you the "tiny dinosaur" thing isn't actually that far from true. Not that there are tiny dinosaurs, just that there are certain species so ubiquitous in the fossil record that paleontologists tend to not bother to analyze the fossils of them bc there's nothing more we can learn from them at this time.
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I work in IT and linked the “How to Increase Your Wi-Fi Signal” video by Infinite Solutions in my email signature as a joke. Folks would email me back all the time saying how it did not work for them or somehow they thought it was helping their signal. My manager finally made me remove it. You'd be shocked how many of my non-networking co-workers thought it was legit.
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It must be admitted: Despite some giveaways, this hoax was really well done... And even amused the people that wrote that official statement at Google! Wonder if that spirit still exists in the company or they would send a nice little cease and desist letter to the video creators instead...
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Now Google officially does pranks by shutting down your favorite Google services! It's so funny that only the people at Google are laughing!
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XP backgrounds, IE, late 2000s my god where did the last 14 years go.
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Its always fun to hear a company like Microsoft go like: "wtf - how are we gonna deal with this very convenient way to watch shows"
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A truly legendary channel
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I did not know the same guys were behind Lasagna Cat. Lasagna Cat sometimes puts a lot of effort into their videos, so it sort of makes sense they made some effort to make these tutorials look real.
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Well, Thio Joe started his YouTube career just like this.
