It seems Mike Arrington has gotten the last laugh on more than a few bloggers — with his announcement that he has bought Fuckedcompany.com. Even Dave Winer got reeled in by the news. I don’t know for sure, but I’m willing to bet that Mike got the idea after reading the Valleywag post about the sale of Fuckedcompany, which suggested Mike should buy it (my friend Steve O’Hear at ZDNet figured out the gag too).
Mike’s post on the “acquisition” was a masterpiece. But there were some clues amidst the press-release-style delivery, including comments like: “the audiences are about equal in size and have very little overlap.” That one set off a warning bell for me — if Fuckedcompany.com has the same size audience as TechCrunch, I thought, then I am Darth Vader. Mike also said that “its clear that we are at the tail end of the current boom (disregard recent statements I’ve made to the contrary).” Ding! He also said “there just isn’t the “wow†factor around new startups like in 2004/2005. That does not bode well for the future – there just isn’t anything left to invent.” Ding!
Near the end of the post, Mike says that “we will likely move new startup coverage, which will be a secondary consideration going forward, to a new blog over time. TechCrunch and FuckedCompany will begin to mirror each other’s content.” Good one, Mike. Happy April Fool’s to you too.
Update:
In other April Fool’s-related news, Ionut. Alex Chitu has word of a new Google offering called Google Writer that will automate blog posting for you, Markus Frind says his dating site Plenty of Fish and eHarmony are merging, Google itself has announced Gmail Paper for sending paper-based mail, as well as Google TiSP, a plumbing-based wireless system for your house. And Google blogger Matt Cutts’ blog has apparently been hacked by the Dark SEO gang. Wikipedia has more here.