Leaks as Marketing Tools?

On February 13th the blogosphere lit up with rumors that there would be a new digicam from Olympus in the not-too-distant future called the E-430. The "leaked" news of this camera came from photoforum.net, and was reported in such established blogs as Engadget. The only problem...there's absolutely no corroboration that this camera will ever exist. And, judging from the comments on the postings, the overwhelming majority agree that this camera looks like a Photoshop hatchet job on an image of the E-330, an earlier Olympus model launched several years ago.

It makes one think about the power of so-called leaks to draw attention to a product. So how can readers tell a real leak from a Photoshop-happy bogus leak? Back in early 2007 there were rumors on the web about what would become the Olympus E-3 pro DSLR. The source was a PDF presentation hosted on a photo site, and this was picked up by CNET among others. It was detailed and appeared to be legitimate (Japanese-English and all). This report made the rounds of digital photography message boards and blogs. It had a lot of information that made it appear as though it were from Olympus (and therefore authentic). It was also taken down by sites that had hosted it and were contacted by Olympus to remove it.

Because Olympus moved to remove the post, it had instant validity, and when the camera was officially launched, it proved to have been accurate information. Still, the fact that it was leaked information caused the E-3 news to build incredible anticipation for the real product. So, the lessons learned: if a leak is just a Photoshopped image, it's probably bogus. But if a company takes measures to have a site remove the content and the content is detailed, then the leak is probably real.

CES 2008 - More of the same?

I had the priviledge of walking the show floor for two days this year and I couldn't help thinking that it was deja vu all over again. The big screen TVs were bigger and thinner, the booth bunnies were still as beautiful/haggard as ever, and the crowds were maddening (but somehow the shuttle buses didn't seem to take as long to the hotel and back). But there didn't seem to be many breakthroughs beyond the generation 2.o devices you would expect to see. There were also a lot of mee-too devices to be seen, like the G'zOne phone from Casio (pronounded Gee-Zohn, like the Pizzone from Pizza Hut).

This was clearly following the lead of Olympus in taking their Stylus digital cameras to greater heights (depths?) of durability with their SW series. Olympus has essentially taken their famous Stylus line that was all-weather and made them even more durable with the sub-category for SW. They're shock-proof, waterproof, freeze-proof, dust-proof and submersible underwater without a housing. But the problem I have with Casio's offering is that it fails to meet a real consumer need. I can't make a cell phone call from underwater (one that you would understand), and if I'm that attached to my phone that I want to have it with me in the water, I need to change my job.

I get the shockproof capability of the phone (who hasn't dropped a cell phone, giving us a new meaning for "dropped call"), but the way they're marketing this phone it needs to have a better reason for me to buy it (and better functionality) before I'll consider durability to be key.