July 9th, 2009
Video of the day: Prankster mocks those who linked to fake Chrome OS images
Here in the tech blogosphere, we love our news scoops. And when we can’t get them ourselves, we’re quick to link to those who do get them. Apparently, that’s not always the smartest move.
At some point yesterday, when everyone and his mother was posting news about Google’s Chrome OS, someone created a new blog - called Chrome OS leak - and posted what appeared to be images of the new OS. He explained in his post that he worked for a company that supplies parts for Acer laptops and that a Google rep stopped by to show off some features of Chrome OS in development. This particular person happened to be invited to the demo, he/she wrote, and snapped some quick pics when the Google rep wasn’t looking.
Yes, it was fake. All of it. Images, the story, the whole bit.
Here’s where it gets better. Instead of just letting these images work their way through the blogosphere and having a good laugh over it with his/her buddies, this prankster went out of his way to produce a video (see below) that would highlight how gullible the blogosphere can be. (From what I can tell, none of the ZDNet blogs linked to it.)
In the video, he notes that the site received more than 3,000 pageviews, was tweeted by more than 500 people and linked to by dozens of sites - and then proceeds to list the sites that linked to him.
Ouch. Looks like this prankster earned his “Gotcha!” moment.
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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