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	Phil's Blogservations Thursday, April 01, 2004 Posted by philgomes 1:36 PM Timing Is Everything... Timing Is Everything... ...Especially when you debut a gigabyte-class free email service like Google did today — April Fool's Day. From Lisa Baertlein's article in Reuters: Google's announcement was questioned because of the U.S. No. 1 search service's unconventional sub-heading on a press release and because it also posted a fictional job listing seeking engineers for a "Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (GCHEESE)" lunar outpost. Google's free e-mail service called Gmail, which will offer significantly more storage than Yahoo or MSN, "is not a hoax," said Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's vice president of products. Google's unconventional March 31 press release announcing Gmail helped set Internet message boards alight because the sub-heading read: "Search is Number Two Online Activity -- Email is Number One: 'Heck, Yeah,' Say Google Founders." "It is April Fool's Day. We were having fun with this announcement. We are very serious about Gmail," Rosenberg said in an interview. The announcement — fairly blockbuster-class in the free email space — and its timing did what I suppose it sought to do: Light up message boards, blogs, chatrooms, and so on. However, it's not like Google really needs to leverage April Fool's Day to generate a lot of news, speculation, or interest. Doc Searls put it another way: So, am I the only one who thought this was a joke? Just when I think I've given all the PR advice a former PR guy who's still a journalist can give, here's one more: If you're gonna shake the Earth with an unexpected announcement, don't pick the one day out of 365 (or this year, 366) when everybody's yanking everybody else's chain, okay? HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.