Why do corporations and executives participate in April Fools' pranks? To make them seem human, for at least one day. Here's the suddenly likable Yahoo CFO Blake Jorgensen showing how well that can work. Fresh from laying off hundreds of their colleagues, he announces to employees that this morning Yahoo made an unsolicited takeover bid for a gossip website. After the jump, the internal announcement posted on Yahoo's Backyard intranet, leaked like just about every other memo posted there:

Silicon Valley gossip site to become part of Yahoo!'s starting point strategy.

Yahoo! today announced it will make an unsolicited takeover bid to purchase Valleywag, the Silicon Valley technology gossip site, as part of a push to increase "starting points" for consumers.

"Though I, personally, haven't always seen eye to eye with its editors," said Blake Jorgensen, CFO of Yahoo!, in a message to employees," we are well aware of how many people start their online experience with Valleywag and hope that as part of the Yahoo! family, we can all just get a long."

Often called "Yahoowag" for its constant coverage of Yahoo! gossip, no matter how minor or incorrect, the pairing of the two is expected to be immediately accretive to Yahoo!'s earnings - especially when considering Valleywag's daily readership that some estimate in the "hundreds."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. No reaction to the offer has been heard from Valleywag editors who, for once, have been strangely silent.