When editors were gods

Great (and not-all-that-great) magazine hoaxes, #6

Just as the dotcom bubble was preparing to burst, Esquire's April 2000 issue introduced readers to the latest too-good-to-be-true Internet start-up, FreeWheelz.com, the brainchild, of course, of a Stanford MBA.

The article, by Ted C. Fishman, explained the company's business model: free cars for drivers who were willing to turn them into "rolling, bumper-to-bumper, top-to-tire" billboards for such products as StayFresh sanitary napkins. In order to rack up "eyeballs" for the ads, participants were required to drive at least 25,000 miles a year and incentivized to create "rush-hour rubbernecking delays," presumably by staging accidents. Not every would-be driver qualified: Applicants had to complete an online form with more than 600 questions, requiring an average of seven hours.

In a newspaper column written soon after the magazine appeared, Fishman marveled at how many people had apparently taken the article seriously: "Was I foolish in thinking my prank was a joke when in this age of goofy businesses and paper zillionaires, wacky ideas are the new Klondike? Maybe I should have just called for investors."

Great (and not-all-that-great) magazine hoaxes, #3

Even computer magazines like to cut loose now and then, as PC/Computing's John C. Dvorak demonstrated in an April 1994 column, decrying a bill he said was nearing passage in the U.S. Senate. "In fact," he warned, "it may already be too late to stop."

SB 040194 (get it?) would make it illegal to use the Internet while intoxicated.

Dvorak invoked such names as Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Barbara Boxer, and Pat Moynihan and offered the theory that the legislators knew so little about technology that they believed the Information Highway was an actual road in danger from drunk drivers.

After the uptick in irate calls to Senate offices, PC/Computing Editor-in-Chief Paul Somerson, offered an explanation for the fuss, saying, "There's a lot of resentment and fear about government intrusion."