I tend to agree with Anil Dash when he says that April Fool’s Day jokes suck. The basic problem is a lack of creativity: jokes often revolve around predictable, sometimes pointless themes (fake product announcement or acquisition, bogus stylesheet, etc). To see for yourself, check out Wikipedia’s list of hoaxes.

That notwithstanding, there was one gag which caught my eye–but not because it was particularly funny. Instead, it actually helped the company’s business. The joke involved a new service, called Jajah. In a nutshell, the company offers web-activated telephony. Type in any two regular phone numbers (ie landline or cell), and Jajah connects them. The first 5 minutes of talk time are free, and after that, Jajah charges per-minute fees.

As you can see, the service gained some noteriety on Digg:

(The text reads: “Enter two phone numbers and Jajah.com calls them both and links the calls together. Feeling evil? Have it call your wife and then complete the call by ringing Weight Watchers. Or try to get your roommate back with her ex by anymously bridging a call between them. Jajah should have waited until after April 1st before launching this service.”)

The Jajah story got 2400+ diggs–looks like crank calling is still popular. As you might expect, the site got a big traffic boost:

I’m not sure if someone from the company made the original Digg submission. Also, I have no idea how many of the people who used Jajah to annoy their friends will actually become paying customers–but I’m guessing that some will. For that reason, Jajah takes top prize this year.

Posted by Dan Grossman on Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 at 10:57 pm.