April fools

When Yahoo! launched our newest news venture, Underground, they did it on April 1st in order to fuel speculation as to whether it’s a real site or an April Fool’s joke. Any publicity is good publicity, right?

Well, it worked - at least among bloggers and the people who comment on them. People have been speculating on the authenticity of the site and even offering proof of their theory.

Of course, we probably put any questions to rest by the fact that the site is still up, and our newest story is up and running on it. It’s on “the import scene,” about extreme car racing and drifting.

Launching this site has been an interesting education for me. For one thing, the technical elements that have gone into it have been enormous and daunting (at times). It’s also been interesting to see word of mouth at work. Whether it will build to a level that will translate to a significant impact on the Web site, that remains to be seen. The education continues.