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2. Opera SoundWave

The Web-browser business is highly competitive, and developers like the Mozilla Foundation, Microsoft, and Opera are always trying to outdo each other with breakthrough enhancements. So it seemed like business as usual when, on April 1, 2005, Opera issued a press release announcing Opera SoundWave, described as an exciting platform-independent real-time technology for short- and medium-range interpersonal communication.

 The company stated that it had accidentally discovered SoundWave during an R&D study to speech-enable Opera's e-mail client, and included a link to a demo of the analog-signal-processing technology.

We hoped that continued healthy competition in the browser market would prompt further advances in Web-enabled communications, but Opera's ill-advised 2006 venture into stock photography was a disappointing follow-up.

1. Deer in Camouflage

On April 1, 2007, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' blog, The PETA Files (say it out loud), contained a brief entry regarding a new Minnesota-based antihunting group called Hunting Is Downright Evil (HIDE), which had developed an ingenious new plan to protect local deer from hunters--first tranquilizing them (the deer, not the hunters), then painting them with a camouflage pattern, and finally rereleasing them into the wild. It certainly gave a new twist to the term "deerhide."

Despite the telltale date right next to the blog post's title, dozens of commentators blasted away at HIDE, PETA, and each other until sunset. Only at 5:44 p.m. on April 1--after a score of vitriolic denunciations of deer painting, hunt interference, and "tree-huggin' idiots"--did a lone voice finally interject: "Y'all know what day it is, right?"

Needless to say, most subsequent commentators persisted in not getting it. PETA was no newcomer to the art of the prank, either: In 2000, the organization announced plans to sabotage a Texas bass fishing tournament by knocking the fish out with tranquilizers. It's a joke, son.
 
Contributing Editor Scott Spanbauer moonlights as a college Spanish instructor, and part-time Shinto priest. No, really.