When an April Fool’s Joke Backfires…
I recently joked on April Fools Day, about Problogger Darren Rowse going bankrupt.
The reason I picked that topic is because I admire Darren Rowse immensely.
I’ve been reading and following his blog for about 2 years now. I don’t think my own blog would be nearly where it is today, without all those great blog posts that he’s written.
To me - a fan of Darren, the most unthinkable thing that could happen is for him to go Bankrupt. If THE Problogger himself went bankrupt - what would that say about the industry? If he was really ‘faking’ it all those years, and all those blog posts. It’s unthinkable and unbelievable.
That’s why I used it as a joke, apparently someone thought it would be even funnier to add it to his Wikipedia page, which I agree may have been overstepping the line just a bit.
Mostly the post was an experiment to see which joke would get more interest, one about microsoft, one about Darren, one about Shoemoney, or one about John Chow (which I accidently forgot to post anyhow..lol).
Apparently, Darren is more popular and famous than microsoft.
To Darren: I do apologize if this has caused any hurt feelings, I do have a ton of respect for the work that you do, and I’ve used your blog postings to bring my current blog to 150 subscribers in less than 30 days, and 1200 hits per day.
I first found out about this via twitter - you can read another blog post on the subject here.
The original post which can be found here, will soon be edited to remove the main content and announce that it was indeed a joke.
Popularity: 52% [?]
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Tags: april 1, april fools, april fools day, april fools day darren rowse, darren bankrupt wikipedia, Darren Rowse, darren rowse bankrupt, darren rowse blogger
April 10th, 2008 at 8:15 am
no hard feelings - I do appreciate you changing the post to clear up confusion of anyone else finding the post. Thanks, hoping no one gets caught up in this but we all learn something int eh process - blog on!
April 13th, 2008 at 6:17 am
I understand that it definitely wasn’t malicious. And I know that when we were kids people used to play that kind of stuff all the time. I got a text message from a friend on April 1st this year that worried me until I realized it was a joke.
As we age, people tend to forget this ‘holiday’ and that’s what makes the serious aspect of this kind of story come to the forefront. Never in your dreams, I’m sure, did you feel it would ever get to the point where Darren was posting it on his website.
But lets be serious, you left out one key reason you went through the trouble to post the jokes in the first place.
You knew it would build traffic. I wouldn’t have ever heard of your blog without reading Darren’s response on ProBlogger.
Anyway, a good marketer is one that succeeds. And you did.
Plus your blog isn’t too shabby!
Cheers
scott
April 14th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Thanks, and It was indeed a success, in that it did bring traffic, and it does show that even bad publicity in many ways is good(can lead to more traffic..), but I’m also glad I didn’t burn any bridges with Darren Rowse, for when I make it to the A-list myself.
I’m also glad you’ve found your way here, and hope you like what you read!
April 14th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Very true - lesson learned. Glad it got under control before causing any kind of damage. I appreciate your appreciation..
And In the immortal words of Apu: “Thank you, Come Again”