It’s April 1st. Of course, that means there will be all kinds of pranks being played all over the place, on and off the web. If you stopped by the site or happen to be subscribed to my feed, then you probably saw something like the image below.
JoeTech.com wasn’t hacked
I wasn’t hacked, but I sure fooled a couple people into thinking I was. I actually had another prank in mind, but today snuck up on me, so I decided at the last minute to hold that one for next year. Here’s what JoeTech.com looked like earlier today:
(image courtesy of http://www.i-tong.com/)
At least one person thought that my prank was in poor taste, while others didn’t seem as bothered. This is due, largely, to the fact that dozens (hundreds? I haven’t counted) of people have my Entrecard Slots and Ad Slots widgets on their blogs. I honestly hadn’t thought of that, but the widgets were loaded over 300,000 times in March, so I should have. In any case, it was all in good fun and I wasn’t hacked. I’m sorry if I scared a few people.
Others had some fun, too
I wasn’t the only one playing devious little pranks today. They ranged from brilliant marketing like Ades going RSS only to fake marketing like ShoeMoney’s post about how to make $1,000 in an hour and ProBlogger’s PayPerTweet Launch, to some more fun and creative ones like John Chow Cola. Don’t take my word for it. There’s a whole list of the top 40 April Fools pranks of 2008.
Where is the line drawn?
My prank and the mixed reaction to it leaves me asking where the line should be drawn. Had I anticipated the notion that it was in bad taste, I might have come up with something different and not just copied John Cow’s 2007 prank. I wonder, though. What about all the other pranks. Is it OK for TechCrunch to claim they’re suing Facebook for $25 million? I assume companies like Coca-Cola and FaceBook who are named in these pranks take it in stride because it’s clearly a joke, but what about those who believe it? Chime in, people.
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