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These obviously planned "leaks" that occur just before a company announces something to get the hype machine in gear are really starting to get tiresome. At le

These obviously planned "leaks" that occur just before a company announces something to get the hype machine in gear are really starting to get tiresome. At least try something more subtle than having a high ranking creative director "accidentally" tweet the feature.

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snprbob86 15y ago
Although I'm sure there are a great many leaks that are planned, I suspect that the frequency of leaks lately are more likely caused by companies being more open and more internally communicative. This is a meta-trend in businesses and loss of some secrecy due to accidentally flapping lips is a small price to pay for the benefits of enhanced collaboration that internal openness brings.
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  I don't doubt that true leaks happen, but this one smells very strongly of a controlled hype leak. It also isn't even the first time this week that Facebook music's imminent arrival was leaked.
blakeross 15y ago
We have not intentionally leaked anything in the run-up to f8.
nbm 15y ago
I'd like to suggest that planned leaks that look like this (ie, an employee making a mistake and announcing/confirming a future product) mostly don't make sense for companies of a certain size/maturity/growth/dominance/culture. Companies want to be able to shape the message people receive about their products, to highlight good or important points and allay certain fears. Leaks are often bad for that, since it inherently relies on third parties to speculate. Whether it's TechCrunch, New York Times, or Robert Scoble, at least one of them will interpret the information in a way that is detrimental to your interests. If you have a planned leak and you don't tell your employees that you planned it, and you don't take corrective action against the "leaker", you're sending a message that it is okay to be lax about this stuff because there are no consequences. And then you start getting unplanned leaks, which are way worse, since it wouldn't be anything near a carefully crafted perfectly unambiguous planned leak. If you have a planned leak and you DO tell your employees, then you're going to create a cynical bunch of people, which will hurt productivity and creativity. And they'll tell people about the planned leaks, and you'll lose a lot of credibility (which hurts hiring as well). And they'll start leaving, which is a really heavy cost. If you have a planned leak and you don't tell your employees (or, even worse, deny it) and you're found out to have done so, you're in an even worse situation.

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snprbob86 15y ago

Although I'm sure there are a great many leaks that are planned, I suspect that the frequency of leaks lately are more likely caused by companies being more open and more internally communicative. This is a meta-trend in businesses and loss of some secrecy due to accidentally flapping lips is a small price to pay for the benefits of enhanced collaboration that internal openness brings.

georgemcbay 15y ago
I don't doubt that true leaks happen, but this one smells very strongly of a controlled hype leak. It also isn't even the first time this week that Facebook music's imminent arrival was leaked.

blakeross 15y ago

We have not intentionally leaked anything in the run-up to f8.

nbm 15y ago

I'd like to suggest that planned leaks that look like this (ie, an employee making a mistake and announcing/confirming a future product) mostly don't make sense for companies of a certain size/maturity/growth/dominance/culture. Companies want to be able to shape the message people receive about their products, to highlight good or important points and allay certain fears. Leaks are often bad for that, since it inherently relies on third parties to speculate. Whether it's TechCrunch, New York Times, or Robert Scoble, at least one of them will interpret the information in a way that is detrimental to your interests. If you have a planned leak and you don't tell your employees that you planned it, and you don't take corrective action against the "leaker", you're sending a message that it is okay to be lax about this stuff because there are no consequences. And then you start getting unplanned leaks, which are way worse, since it wouldn't be anything near a carefully crafted perfectly unambiguous planned leak. If you have a planned leak and you DO tell your employees, then you're going to create a cynical bunch of people, which will hurt productivity and creativity. And they'll tell people about the planned leaks, and you'll lose a lot of credibility (which hurts hiring as well). And they'll start leaving, which is a really heavy cost. If you have a planned leak and you don't tell your employees (or, even worse, deny it) and you're found out to have done so, you're in an even worse situation.