Thanks to the folks at 49ersWebZone.com and Twitter over-exuberance, Brian Murphy was April-Fooled a day later. This morning, someone on Twitter with the handle of @NRino33 (who has zero followers as I write this) sent Murphy this link:

 

Except it wasn’t a great find. 49ersWebZone works Niners fans into a tizzy like this every year, and for 2012 they came up with four fake stories:

Yes, Randy Moss is a Niner. Yes, Josh Johnson is one as well. Yes, so is Brandon Jacobs. None of these were part of our annual April Fools stories. What did our moderator staff come up with this year? In case you didn’t visit earlier today, the following were the April Fools stories for 2012.

Source: 49ers close to a deal with Mike Wallace
(archived copy)

Since before the start of free agency, fans have been wanting the 49ers to go after Wallace so this one was obvious for us. In case you were not fooled by that one, maybe you continued reading.

San Francisco Losing Faith in Kaepernick
(archived copy)

Google and Apple may compete for naming rights to new 49ers stadium
(archived copy)

Nike’s NFL deal may impact Harbaugh’s wardrobe
(archived copy)

Once again, we have had great (and sometimes hilarious) feedback from fans. Now back to your normally scheduled coverage.

Here’s one of Murphy’s reactions after he found out.

 

 

To Murphy’s credit, he apologized profusely on Twitter and owned up to the mistake. I do agree with him that April Fool’s, while a fun holiday when it’s based on innocuous jokes made in person, doesn’t translate that well over the internet. Sure, it’s all fun and games for 49ersWebZone (and after years of their shenanigans we’ve all learned our lesson — don’t trust them), but jokes like these make it even tougher to trust what’s reported on Twitter.