Here at ZDNet, we love April Fools’ Day stories as much as anyone but we don’t write them ourselves. Why? Well, because no matter how sure you are that no one will take your story seriously, some one will. This year’s example that proves the point was a political blog in Forbes that claimed that Mitt Romney had dropped out the Presidential race! The tale promptly shot to the top of Google News. Sometimes trusting an algorithm to pick the top “news” story can blow up on you.
The story, which claimed that “Mitt Romney [had] announced today that he is ending his presidential campaign and throwing his support behind Rick Santorum.” was a fake. On a completely non-funny note for the author, blogger Len Burman, promptly posted a “retraction” to his tale, writing, that “Forbes [had] pulled down because of an unannounced ban on April Fools’ Day humor.” Forbes’ editors have since pulled both of Burman’s pieces. I strongly suspect that this is one April Fools’ story, where the ending won’t be funny at all for the writer.
Meanwhile over in pure technology, here are my top April Fools’ stories for 2012.