Project Dawnstar was the codename given to the "Flights to Mars for $99" April Fool's Day prank launched on both Expedia.com and Expedia.co.uk on April 1, 2009. The effort was coordinated by Expedia

Expedia

Expedia is an Internet-based travel website based in the US with localised sites for 21 countries...

, working alongside three social media

Social media

The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...

 agencies to generate exposure on the internet.

Events of April 2009

At 23:59 GMT on 31 March 2009, Expedia.com and Expedia.co.uk simultaneously released their Flights to Mars microsites. The pages included details on various hotels on Mars, activities on Mars as well as a booking wizard which allowed you to select your leaving point and Spacecraft for the journey, which would eventually take you through after a search to an "all flights are booked" result but provided the user with a voucher for their trouble.

The page also featured a fake TV advert for flights to Mars which were hosted on YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

. Each of these videos were produced by Expedia for the launch of the campaign.

Aftermath

The flights to Mars hoax garnered a large coverage on social networking sites Twitter and Reddit but as of 2pm April 1, 2009 had not reached 'Popular' status on Digg.com

External links

• Expedia flights to Mars - official site (US)
• Expedia flights to Mars - official site (UK)