Don't Give Up Your Day Job

Usually I find the Google April Fool's Day hoax at least an attempt at funny. Sure Google Romance, CADIE, and the Gmail Autopilot were certainly funnier than the overly corporate Virgle prank, but even Virgle had some geekitude going for it with all the Mars talk and science fandom send-ups. But this year's Topeka prank was just stupid and unfunny. It didn't even say anything particularly clever about the ubiquity of the Google name, and it felt like the worst kind of product placement. And the fact that so many cities have failed in their wireless initiatives without big corporate backers and that so many civic institutions and forms of governance are eagerly outsourcing their IT to Google hardly makes this gag about the slipperiness of the public and the private much of a laughing matter. As a spoof complete with city proclamations that makes light of the failure of government broadband, I don't think America really wants to get this particular joke.