The amazing manipulating power of the “accidental” leak

Every professional field has a set of hot buttons that allows those in it to be manipulated. For politicians, it’s money, power, and votes. In Hollywood, it’s exposure, inclusion, and awards. Everyone has hot buttons, even the allegedly-unfaltering news media.

For them, there are really only three things that can manipulate them: exclusives, scoops, and leaks.

Today, thegadgetbuff caught a video put out by Nokia for a short time ahead of a launch tomorrow of the Lumia 610NFC, the first Near Field Communication enabled Windows phone. This is news. It’s just not big news. What made the news bigger and got it instant exposure on Techcrunch, The Next Web, and other major tech publications was the fact that we weren’t supposed to see it yet.

It isn’t that the video was put up. It’s the fact that it was taken down that grabbed tech journalists’ attention. Thankfully for the sake of truth and information, someone had the presence of mind to capture the video before it was taken down by Nokia.

Thankfully.

The announcement in Monaco tomorrow will be more publicized now than it every would have been had the video was not accidentally released and subsequently pulled. It’s a Windows phone. It has support for a technology that is emerging but still minor in the whole scheme of things.

We aren’t accusing anyone of fowl play, but it certainly has played out nicely for Nokia if was accidental.

Here’s the thankfully preserved bootleg of the original video.