Before the invention of the iPhone and the creation of the Android device, the market leader for smartphones was Research in Motion. Through it’s main product, the Blackberry, companies and individuals could tap into their emails, make phone calls, and use numerous apps and games right from the palm of their hands. It was all the rage and everyone had to have them. Now focus on today’s market and the entire landscape has shifted away from RIM’s grasp and focus: Only 5% of US smartphone buyers chose to get a Blackberry. Why is that? It’s because more and more apps and appeal is being given to the competitors from Apple and Google. What’s worse is that for those 5% of consumers who actually bought a Blackberry, most are probably not even satisfied with their phone.

So why did they buy them? Probably for a variety of reasons…the physical keyboard, perhaps? Or maybe it’s because it’s compatible with their work email client? Maybe they don’t like the fact that potential malware could be in apps that they’ve heard is plaguing Android devices? Or lastly, maybe it’s because they don’t want to give themselves up to the Apple fanaticism? Whatever the reasoning is, there are still those people out there who wish to purchase a Blackberry…now the question is why is Blackberry still doing so poorly? Some might speculate that the phone manufacturer isn’t keeping up with the times or maybe that there’s just not enough demand for mobile apps to come out. Think about the latest and greatest mobile apps that have emerged recently, whether it’s Path or Instagram or even a proximity app like Highlight–all of which are available on iOS or even Android devices, but would they ever develop for Blackberry? At last month’s PandoMonthly event, Path founder Dave Morin explicitly said that they’d never develop for Blackberry (Windows Phone is a possibility, however).

As you know, today is April 1 and what’s synonymous with the first of April is one of the most popular holidays for jokesters. It’s April Fool’s Day and this is when people can really become creative and come up with great gags and hoaxes that most people might normally fall for, on any normal day, that is. But since April Fool’s Day is upon us, I thought it would be interesting to cast the spotlight onto five interesting things that tech companies and publications are doing in order to try and fool everyone.

Editorial note: I’d like to apologize to the companies I’m about to promote here for dousing their ambitious attempts at trying to trick people…really, I thought about how best to do this before I penned this post. I don’t mean to ruin your joke.

Bringing faxing back

So someone decided to create a pretty lavish campaign centered around the antiquated fax machine. It’s called Down to Fax and they’ve billed themselves as being the “chatroulette for fax machines”. Yeah, so if you ever cared to try and hook up with someone, then forget using services like eHarmony or Match.com because the newest way to get someone to go out with you is through the fax machine. Someone clearly put a bunch of effort into the site because you can view “random submissions” that someone has sent in using the Down to Fax service and there’s even a Frequently Asked Question section of the website. Basically, it’s a free service, but of course local fax charges may apply. Never worry again about things getting lost in one’s spam folder or lost since they can’t get to the proverbial “Inbox Zero”. Hell, you don’t really need a fax machine–all you need is an email address and the service will send you potential matches. And as a word of caution, please don’t go out to your nearest Best Buy or Office Depot and buy yourself a fax machine.

You might think of this as the analog version of eHarmony.

Could Uber be branching out into more luxury modes of transportation? That’s apparently what a credible source has told me. It looks like in select cities, Uber, the tech startup disrupting the car transportation industry, is looking to evolve to include a much different mode of getting around. As early as next year, this company, known for driving people around in Lincoln towncars and giving riders that bit of luxury and VIP service, is supposedly going to start allowing you to travel to your destination in a helicopter.

Yes, that’s right…you’re now going to be able to travel in the skies all thanks to Uber from point A to point B and avoid all that congestion. But don’t think that you’ll be able to do it anywhere Uber is…the cost-benefit for the company is to have it where there’s unbelievable congestion in the cities and simply taking you by towncar is unacceptable (and probably more expensive the longer you’re delayed). So it would make sense for Uber to roll this new service out in cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other large locations.

Early today, Bloomberg Businessweek reported something that we probably all shouldn’t be too shocked to hear: Facebook is possibly going to dive deeper into the world of search. It was only a matter of time, quite frankly. Bloomberg Businessweek points out that never has Facebook made search a priority. In fact, the social network has placed their priority in helping to curate social data–they want you, the consumer, to share your data and content with them so that they have the human aspect of information that people would be so engrossed to learn from. Over the past seven years, Facebook and worked on organic growth of their social data without even putting as much effort into other forms of search–sure they’ve partnered with Microsoft’s Bing search engine, but it won’t give you the information that you really want to know about.

Facebook’s supposed effort to dive into the world of search could be seen as a potshot against their competitor, Google, but All Facebook believes that the effort to improve the search capability of the largest social network is indeed benevolent. Instead of the “anything you can do, I can do better” shtick, Facebook indents to help their users locate relevant content better amongst all the noise of status updates from games, apps, photos, videos, and other shared content, including from content on sites liked by other users.

We all know that it’s a tough time in our country. It’s especially stressful on people who want to go to college and get an advanced degree and who just want to learn. The average college tuition is rising, mostly a result of the decrease in the amount of support provided by the state and other funding drying up. What this does is put the student at risk of dropping out and not completing their education. But what if there was a way that leveraged what students were already doing that could help them stay in school? Surely there’s a way, right?

And there is…the potential solution lies within a startup named Grantoo. Started by two high school friends, Dimitri Sillam and Mikhael Naayem, Grantoo’s goal is to help college students pay their tuition bill. There’s more to it than it being that simple, but for now let’s stick with the direct benefit to the student. Since being in a college environment (in addition to being highly addicted to what’s happening on the Internet), students are probably constantly looking for ways to entertain themselves in a group setting. Whether it’s playing games like poker or other types of games, students are playing it. It’s all about the competition and the group environment. What Grantoo hopes to do is leverage this behavior and get college students to play against each other on some popular multi-player games. Seems pretty basic, right? Yes, but these games would be set up tournament-style that would not require students to pay anything to play, but if they win, then there’s a real chance that they would get some legitimate prize money that they could take advantage of. But make no mistake that this isn’t really gambling because there’s no money from the student involved in the pile. On the contrary, the student doesn’t pay anything–their money is given to them by the tournament sponsors. Brands will work with Grantoo to offer up a set pot where in the tournament and the winner of the game will get to collect their winnings.