Apr 01
Google News Falls for Ballmer/Gates April Fool’s Joke
Posted in: Google, Microsoft, Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili
Oh April Fool’s Day–it’s a 24-hour-long stream of annoyance, frustration, and anger, all in the name of organized hilarity. The advent of the Internet has, for better or worse, allowed respectable news organizations to get into the mix (See: PCMag’s own Post-PCMag site).
Some pranks make their presence known right off the bat. Others a bit more difficult to parse at first glance. And then, sometimes, a well-timed joke will really hit the zeitgeist. Both InfoWorld and RedmondMag “reported” today that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had stepped down, so his predecessor Bill Gates could take the helm of the company he cofounded.
The stories hit just right for two reasons–first, there was yesterday’s surprise announcement that Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci stepped down, following disagreements with his company’s board of advisors. And then there were the excerpts from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s upcoming book, which do a little good, old-fashioned Gates bashing (according to Allen, Gates had schemed to take control of company shares while Allen was battling cancer).
Google picked up the two stories in a news cluster and punctuated them with an image from the former–an old black and white photo of Gates and Allen in friendlier times. The question is, how long will it take for that news cluster to grow?
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