Do people ever look at calendars anymore?

I mean, ok, granted the PR must have gotten sent out a few hours too early, but, still do copy editors ever actually read content for sanity?

"It's a new paradigm where you don't delete your e-mail," said Rosing.

Is that not some sort of a tipoff? What about this part?:

When asked if consumers would perceive the targeted ads to be a violation of their privacy, Rosing said the company's terms-of-service agreement for Gmail "says clearly that the targeting is done by machines" and that they would respect user privacy. "It takes a bit of getting used to," admitted Rosing, "but we don't see that as a problem."

I guess not even the whole concept that it is on Google would make anyone think, "hey, wait a minute...." They should know this is PigeonRank II

Well, wonder how long until the countless newsites that have posted the "Breaking News" with a 3/31 byline come to see the "official" press release on Google's site that has the 4/1/04 date. Will they delete the stories as if they weren't fooled? Or change the date on their story and try to pretend they were in on the joke?

I am sort of sad, though. Web-based email is a joke and I wished it was real. To taunt us more, Google even put up an actual page with "Coming Soon".