If it’s April 1, it must be April Fools day

and here on the net, I’m seeing dozens. And honestly? Most of them aren’t funny, or interesting, or original.

Sigh.

Here’s a hint, from someone who used to really enjoy April Fool’s day: If you’re doing something that took under 10 minutes to think up or under 10 minutes to implement, you probably shouldn’t bother. Renaming products (“Palm POST” heh. How unique. all ten of you) and bad photoshops do not an April Fools joke make. Just an April Fool.

About the only one I’ve seen this year that shows any real thought is Michael Mace’s sideswipe of both the mobile market and the federal bailout strategy. Definitely worth a read.

I presume the big topic of discussion at the CTIA conference this week is going to be the government’s emergency bailout package for the tech industry. I was surprised this morning when US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner replaced RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis at the CTIA keynote to announce the package, and ever since I’ve been scrambling to sort through all the details. A lot of it’s still fuzzy, but here’s what I’ve been able to figure out so far:

via Mobile Opportunity: Thoughts on the tech industry bailout.

Honorable mention as usual goes to Tidbits. Not all of their articles click with me, but they thought about it and put some time into it. And some of their pieces are pretty good.

The rest of it is pretty damn forgettable.

Curmudgeonly yours,

Someone who was doing this when most of you were in diapers.

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  • http://mmatm.blogspot.com Red

    Well, I had a couple of great ideas to play on a specific audience, but alas, I did not have the time to implement. If Easter & Lent didn't coincide with April Fools, then I might have time to do it.

    Maybe I can figure out a way to set a time bomb during the summer or fall for next April 1 :D

  • http://mmatm.blogspot.com Red

    Well, I had a couple of great ideas to play on a specific audience, but alas, I did not have the time to implement. If Easter & Lent didn't coincide with April Fools, then I might have time to do it.

    Maybe I can figure out a way to set a time bomb during the summer or fall for next April 1 :D

  • Uncle S

    Glad I'm not the only person who feels that way.

    I think the only one I've seen of note since the common folks got internet access was one on Ars- where they'd posted a journal article descriibing a repeating signal from a star within a few light years with frequency pulse shits that approximated the fractional representations of phi and pi.

  • http://tewha.net Steven Fisher

    My favorite April fool's gag of all time was an article about MSN and iChat linking up in TidBITS through an ad-sponsored bridge, that for some reason it took me about two months to realize was a fake. Only time I've ever been gotten to that degree.