we're related?

This past Wednesday, the "We're Related" team - a highly popular Facebook application - sent 19 million Facebook users the following message:

"Barack Obama (Washington, DC) has confirmed you as his fourth cousin once removed on We're Related."

To see the how they were related, the lucky cousin followed a link to a landing page that showed him Obama's family tree and how he was connected. 

I have to admit, even though it was clearly an April Fool's joke, I was kind of jealous that I wasn't one of the lucky cousins. Then again, perhaps that would have been weird and slightly incestuous considering I find the man totally sexy. 

Anyway, the joke drew thousands of hits on the "We're Related" application page as traffic to the site increased more than five fold. "Our traffic has skyrocketed to five times our normal traffic. Hundreds of thousands of visitors are visiting the application per hour. Plus, we have become a trending topic on Twitter," said Jason McGowan, chief social officer of Familylink.com which developed the "We're Related" application. Apparently, reactions had ranged from total excitement to anger (?) to warnings about fraud and viruses. 

I do love that thousands of people fell for this - I probably would have too.

P.S. Thanks to Migs for sending this dandelion.