Last weekend, a few online news outlets reported that Amazon Malaysia (Amazon.my) would be launched in collaboration with iPrice Malaysia.
It was an April Fool joke by iPrice Malaysia.
April Fools’ Day is celebrated every year on April 1 by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. The jokes and their victims are called April fools
According to TheStar Online, iPrice Malaysia’s announcement is an April Fool’s joke, evident from the “Happy April Fool’s Day” sign-off at the end of the press release on its blog.
A link to the Amazon.my tutorial page that supposedly features a live demonstration of the site redirects to a YouTube video of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.
So you get “rickrolled” too.
iPrice Malaysia content marketing executive Jeremy Chew told The Star Online that the company did not intend for the joke to be mistaken for the real thing.
“Our intent was not to deceive, but to share our imagination of how it would be when Amazon enters South-East Asia,” he said.
“Our designers and writers added local humour to the materials to hint that the press release is an April Fool’s prank,” he said, referring to Raja Bomoh and Rick Astley’s “cameo appearances.”
Several technology portals reported late last year that Amazon would enter South-East Asia via a launch of selected services in Singapore slated for the first quarter of 2017.
Unfortunately, a number of online media portal have no knowledge of this prank and have yet to take down their “Amazon.my” article at the time of writing this. Here’s a short list:
- Wiser.my
- Hype.my
- Says.com
- KLGadgetGuy
- Mobile88.com
- TheHive.asia
- VernonChan.com
- NST.com.my
- Itdadao.com
- Lipstiq.com (This is a cache version, original article removed)
- TheMalayMailOnline.com (This is a cache version, original article removed)
- mis-asia.com (This is a cache version, original article removed)
Well played iPrice!
Looks like we have got to wait a little bit longer before Amazon truly comes to Malaysia.
In the mean time,Check out: Amazon will probably never enter Southeast Asia. Here’s why