Just When You Thought You Were Safe, You Might Get Rick Rolled By Phone

It has probably happened to all of us.  You click on a video link to see a cat playing the piano (or something important like that) and bam!, theres Rick Astley and he is “never gonna give you up”.  The Rick Roll has become a popular April Fool’s prank.  Even YouTube did it.  But now, the Rick Roll has escaped its internet prison.

Twilio has launched a service that will “let your web app make and receive phone calls”.  How did they get some free media coverage for their new service?  They Rick Rolled Mike Arrington of TechCrunch.  You can see how he felt about it here.

It tried the service on myself.  Poorly executed.  In the classic Rick Roll, there is no warning.  Just Rick Astley suddenly singing.  If you decide to Rick Roll someone using Twilio, the first thing they hear is, “You have been Rick Rolled by ###-###-####”.  Technically speaking, that’s not a Rick Roll, but maybe I am splitting hairs.

Go ahead, try it out on a friend.  Or better yet, try it on on an enemy.  But if you want to remain anonymous, you better spoof your phone number first.