Facebook Punks TechCrunch With Photo Fax Hoax

Apparently shifting the media landscape in record time isn’t enough to keep you busy — there’s free time to plan somewhat elaborate pranks on one another! Yesterday TechCrunch‘s Jason Kincaid noticed a “fax” icon on the photos on his Facebook account and, after confirming with this new feature with his cohorts, he promptly filed a post titled Facebook Now Lets You Fax Your Photos. I Have No Idea Why Anyone Would Want To Do This. Turns out that it was a joke! Those krazy Silicon Valley Internet companies!

Head TechCruncher (?) Michael Arrington picks up the story:

Earlier today TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid noticed something new on Facebook. When viewing any photo, it showed a “Fax This Photo” link on the bottom right of the screen. Ridiculous? Yes. But everyone in the TechCrunch network saw it. He fired off an email to Facebook at 5:05 pm. When they didn’t respond, he posted at 5:29: Facebook Now Lets You Fax Your Photos. I Have No Idea Why Anyone Would Want To Do This.

Things went downhill from there.

A brief email exchange apparently didn’t pass the smell test and TechCrunch realized they’d been had:

Jason then called Facebook PR. Jaime Schopflin took the call and, apparently, couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes. Between laughs while catching her breath she mentioned something about this being a joke, that nobody but us could see it, and that they were placing bets around the office on how long before we noticed it and posted. And something else about teaching us to contact them before posting.

So, bottom line, don’t expect to see this feature actually launch. Unless you come to work for TechCrunch, I guess. We still see it.

Kudos for Facebook and TechCrunch for showing that, despite their successful efforts to cause the cataclysmic shift in mainstream media consumption, they can still maintain a sense of humor and have fun.