Seen on webmasterworld , about the whole Google Gmail thing:

This might be among the best April Fool's Day hoax ever.
Hoax watching sites announced it was a probable hoax early on. Lots of us debated it. Lots of others watched from the sidelines, unsure...perhaps up until we opened our AdWords newsletters a couple of hours ago.
Yet it was no hoax. The hoax was to make us think it was a hoax.

It was total genius. And they got the balance *just* right - too far one way or the other and it would have backfired.

The best marketing ploy I have seen in *years*.