Malta search engine replicates Google’s ‘smell engine’ April Fools joke

Search engine FirstMalta.com needs some ideas for an April Fool’s joke.

On Tuesday it launched its ‘aromabase’ technology on the internet: a seach engine that offers users “the possibility to not only view and read about any product they search for but also to smell it. This groundbreaking technology recently launched in Malta in collaboration with Google Labs is being tested right now on FirstMalta.com.”

The problem is, this joke has already been done.

Google Nose ‘launched’ in 2013 with the promise to “to offer the sharpest olfactory experience available” with a video introducing Google Nose explaining that the feature allows users to “search for smells”.

As ‘claimed’ by FirstMalta.com: “The technology is using psychological perception to induce it’s users to literally ‘smell’ any product being advertised on the website itself. The Aromabase (tm) technology being used is the result of a two-year collaboration between Google representatives who also visited Malta in the last months and FirstMalta.com.”

Of course the prank has its commercial uses: users have to share the search engine on Facebook before getting a whiff of their search term.