Google has a sense of humour and playfulness, if the quirky elements it hides in its products are anything to go by. Let’s discover some more of those cool Easter eggs, this time hidden in Google Hangouts and involving fun animations.

Want to wish someone a happy birthday via chat? Type in Happy birthday!! Wondering what’s so special about that bit of text? It’s the pair of exclamation points at the end. They trigger a surprise animation that could involve cake, a cute duck/fox character, or maybe even a present.

That was fun, right? Now try a few more words — woot, woohoo, yay — to trigger other celebratory animations. Note that this won’t work unless you add more than one exclamation point at the end of text.

There are other animations that get triggered with the syntax /trigger_text. Here are some of the trigger words that make this work: shydino, ponies, pitchforks. Go on, try using them now.

Here’s a snapshot of the animation you get with /ponystream. Beware! It won't disappear until you close and reopen the chat window.

 

Which is your favorite secret trick hidden in Google Hangouts or any other Google product? Share it with us and other MakeUseOf readers in the comments!

Image Credit: Set of children with colorful dialog speech bubbles by ankomando via Shutterstock