With holiday shopping beginning, consumers are considering the latest mobile phones. Will it be the Droid or the Eris? The Pre or the Pixi? Other consumers, however, are looking ahead to the next generation of mobile phones. Will it be the HTC Passion or the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (which notably, will have a retail price of $880)? Will it have a 5 mp pixel and a 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor? A decent segment of mobile phone consumers appears to never be satisfied with what is currently available. This has is sparked a cottage industry in the effort to obtain photos and videos of pre-release devices.
It appears that everyone wants a peek at what’s next… whether its a spec sheet, a design concept or even a very blurry photo. Some blogs exist entirely for this purpose and I have posted up some information about rumored devices as well. (Though pre-releases interest me, they will not be the exclusive focus of this site.) What is behind all of this?
I suppose the closest analogy is that this obsession is similar to automobile obsessions. Every car model is revised each year and consumers want to make informed choices. Do I purchase today’s model or wait for tomorrow’s? Did they fix the taillight I didn’t like? In the automobile world, photographers go undercover near testing grounds, sometimes near the American southwest deserts, and snap photos of the testing of protype automobiles. These photographers then sell their photos to automobile magazines and other outlets that can benefit by publishing the content.
In the mobile phone world, there is no outdoor testing where anyone with a fast camera shutter and a high-powered camera lens can snap a photo. I suspect the pre-release photos posted online are usually released by employees of device manufacturers or suppliers who stand to profit by selling pre-release photos. The latest Blackberry leak, the “Stratus,” was posted nearly simultaneously on both Crackberry and Salomondrin, though the shots were somewhat different. Apparently, claims Crackberry, they had the photos in reserve but were not permitted to post them until a specific time (curious if that was a date certain or the posting by Salomondrin of similar photos). In any event, there must be a tremendous amount of cash involved for employees to risk their careers to release confidential information.
I suppose one alternative explanation is that device manufacturers themselves authorize a limited release of photos to stir up interest in an upcoming product. I believe this is an unlikely scenario. First, Salomondrin’s video of the Blackberry “Stratus” was removed from YouTube for violating its terms of service. As I wrote in another post, this was probably at the request of RIM’s attorneys. Nobody else has standing to pull the video. Second, it would offer a advantage to competitors to see the pre-released mobile phones. It is surprising that large public companies do not have better control over their confidential information. I wouldn’t want to be the project manager who has to tell his boss, “Have Legal call YouTube to remove the video of our mobile phone we haven’t released.”
In any event, its a fascinating phenomenon. Nobody seems to care what 2010 Nikes or Coffe-Mates will look like. But, when it comes to pre-release mobile phone photos, there is overwhelming interest. It has become the porn of the tech world.
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