Commentary & Analysis

Google's April Fools Post Says More than Its Obvious Amusing Intent

By Dr. Joe Webb
Published: April 1, 2007

Ok, when I saw the intro page for their April Fools joke, about "Gmail Paper," I thought it might make some sense because I actually remember when you could send a letter through AOL that they would print and mail for you. AOL discontinued that sometime around 1997 or so, if memory serves me right. At one time, it was handy when people were on the road and you had to send a note to someone who did not have e-mail. Obviously, there is little need for it now.

The fact that there was a grain of truth to Google's April Fools endeavor makes it all the more effective. I miss the fact that April Fools Day is a Sunday and we don't have a WTT page for our own version this year. The Google folks, however, do not have the burden of a calendar.

The Gmail Paper landing page is just priceless in its humor. As one reads it, they know that it is clearly a joke, with inside jokes and also subtle comments about the power of electronic media. If you take their words seriously, however, you could create a pro and con list about why electronic media work and in the ways it is superior to print.

Just like Google's search engine and e-mail service, Gmail Paper is free. "The cost of postage is offset with the help of relevant, targeted, unobtrusive advertisements, which will appear on the back of your Gmail Paper prints in red, bold, 36 pt Helvetica. No pop-ups, no flashy animations these are physically impossible in the paper medium." Yes, a dig at the static nature of printed materials. There's more.

E-mail has attachments, of course. So does Gmail Paper. "Photo attachments are printed on high-quality, glossy photo paper, and secured to your Gmail Paper with a paper clip. MP3 and WAV files will not be printed. We recommend maintaining copies of your non-paper Gmail in these cases." I would imagine though, that an MP3 printout requires less paper than a WAV... that is if it could be done. But file compression is not a very humorous topic, as that last comment proves.

Paper in the new media world is a pollutant. Not so with Gmail Paper, however. The company that has "do no harm" in its motto has the solution. "Not a problem. Gmail Paper is made out of 96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum, and thus, actually helps the environment. For every Gmail Paper we produce, the environment gets incrementally healthier."

So there we have it: paper can't deliver rich media and is environmentally unsound. Ah, but let's not be too serious and get on with enjoying the joke.

But think of how plumbers and bath products manufacturers feel after reading about Google's TiSP system, which allows you to create a wireless broadband network by flushing various components using your commode-based entry point. A playful nudge to the home wiring broadband folks, and perhaps the folks at Kohler, too.

And a hat tip to blogger Adam Dewitz for alerting me to a site that has multiple April Fools technology lampoons this year.