April Fools day always gets the creative juices flowing in the blogosphere with some pretty elaborate hoaxes being unleashed onto the unwitting public.
I planned on some content tomfoolery myself but what with trying to get my new Blog Not Slog Breakthrough report finished, I simply ran out of time.
A bit of an excuse admittedly but to keep in with the spirit of the day, here’s a round up of some internet marketing related April Fool stories I came across.
5. Google to Change Name
Despite being one of the most recognisable brands in the world and practically owning the internet, the official Google blog expected us to believe the company was to change it’s name to Topeka. Living in the UK, I had no idea what this word meant, but apparently it’s the name of a town in Kansas.
The Mayor of Topeka (the place, which had now confusingly decided to rename itself to “Google” in some elaborate fictional switcheroo) offered the soundbite:
“Even Google recognizes that all roads lead to Kansas, not just yellow brick ones”
Quite.
Fool Factor – 1/5
4. How to Steal Traffic from Bit.ly
A short and sweet effort from super affiliate Jonathan Volk who came up with a rather unlikely method to hijack bit.ly links and redirect them elsewhere, thus stealing other people’s traffic. Not a brilliant idea for a hoax and not a convincing blog post either. But at least he came up with something, I guess.
Fool Factor – 2/5
3. Blogger to Land TV Deal
After the first two horrendous efforts we now move along to something a bit more plausible. Blogger Daniel Scocco, who runs DailyBlogTips.com claimed he was to be offered a morning television gig whereby he would comment on blogging and new media.
Considering his blog is one of the most popular in the world, with an enviable Alex ranking around the 4,000 mark, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility but it was a hoax nonetheless.
Fool Factor – 3/5
2. Blogger to Sell Blog
Not exactly an earth shattering concept but when the blogger involved is buzz marketing tinker Dean Hunt it deserves a bit more attention. Dean, who loves his blog, was willing to flog DeanHunt.com to the highest bidder, as long as they were prepared to fork out over $120,000.
I had spoken to the man himself not 24 hours before the blog post was made. During our chat we discussed our future plans and Dean suggested he was undecided on which direction to take long term.
Lo and behold, the next morning (a day earlier than April 1 no less) the blog is apparently up for sale. Being a brainy sort I put 2+2 together and believed his blog post had some merit…
Yeah, right, for about two seconds…
Fool Factor – 4/5
1. Google Acquires ProBlogger
However, the best April Fool blog post of the day has got to go to Darren Rowse who even went as far as writing an official press release to announce ProBlogger.net had been snapped up by Google.
This plausible story, centred around Google wanting the hugely popular ProBlogger as a “precursor to their new professional blogging suite of applications” certainly got the desired effect. The blog post containing the release was retweeted hundreds of times and attracted a number of juicy backlinks.
This was linkbait at it’s finest and Rowse even got away with it despite it being an obvious April Fool hoax.
Fool Factor – 5/5
Got Any More?
These are just five of the likely hundreds of April Fool related blog posts which today are cluttering up servers worldwide and taking in simpletons.
But, do you know of any more and what did you think of those featured in this post?
Please share by posting in the comments below!
Did you see Copyblogger? Their April Fool’s Day post was about the end of the Third Tribe. It looked horrible until you remembered what day it was.
I didn’t do anything on my blog but then it’s just getting off the ground. Check it out. I’m going to be writing about writing. You’ll get up to date on my rants about bad writing and I even have a couple of jokes about writing that are pretty good.
Damn.. if I knew there was a contest I would have written a special April Fool’s blog post!! I did actually think about it.. but it was too late by the time I had the idea. Add onto that the time it would have taken to something up with something truly convincing and I’d have been outta time!
I remember last year that Google claimed that they were releasing the technology for Gmail users to send an e-mail into the past. Not very convincing but apparently there were people who it fooled……
IF I knew there was a contest i also would have written a Special April Fool”s Blog Post. I will try to come up with a great one for next year. Some people will do anything for attention….
.-= John Schaeffer´s last blog ..IM Web Graphics Pack =-.