JUDGE AND JURY
Well, it's the day after, so after a flurry of original, and some "me too" April Fool's Day shenanigans on the web (see this blow-by-blow rundown at this Wikipedia entry), it's time for the awards.
So without further ado, and in no particular order (other than the fact that I've saved the best, IMHO, for last).
Here we go*:
1. Best April Fool's Day Cartoon, Hugh McLeod. Says it all.
2. Best One by a GYMAAAE company, Google Romance, by Google. All the more plausible since it's a "Portal" feature still missing from their portfolio.
3. Best One by a GYMAAAE Corporate Taskmaster, "Amazon Does IM" by CTO Werner Vogels, (comes with it's own Hugh McLeod cartoon).
Werner also gets the "You'd never think he's this funny from his picture" Bonus Award.
4. Best "Over-the-top,-A-for-Effort", "Duke Nukem Forever", Ars Technica.
5. Best "Needle-in-a-Haystack", "They Come in Peace" Google Earth, discovered by Kevin Jarnot.
6. Best "I can't believe you wore the same dress on April Fool's Day" awards go to Scoble, Zawodny, Cutts, Calacanis, and a couple of others I've probably missed.
7. Best pre-emptive "My Prank before your Prank" award to "Google Rooms", by Philipp Lenssen, Google Blogoscoped.
8. Best "Were it only true" New Gadget announcement by Steve Jobs, "The Apple HuchiKuchi Mini-Tablet Mac", via JKontherun.
9. Best "Now you see it, now you don't", aka "Blink and it's gone" epheremal Award goes to Microsoft's Live.com Search box, which was available for that one special day only. This author totally missed this one, but was captivated by Nathan Weinberg's description:
"...Live.com had the most technically cool prank I’ve seen. When you went for the search box, it ran away from you! Please, please, please archive this!"
10. And the BEST, Totally had me in a "Gotcha Moment" from beginning-to-end, true April Fool's Day style, Award goes to...(DRUM ROLL)...Mike Arrington, TechCrunch, for "Goop"!
Great effort, everybody...can't wait for 2007.
* These awards are the sole, arbitrary opinions of the author, currently battling a mild fever, with no pretense at being comprehensive, well-thought out, fair, or well-judged.
Awards are totally subject to change with additional suggestions, comments, emails, and other attempts at cajoling and/or intimidation.
Also, most of these awards will be comprehensible only if reader has certain "Geek" tendencies. No effort has been made to "dress up" these awards for mainstream audience sensibilities.
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