Marketing strategy in the Web era

It used to be simple, you would develop a product in total secrecy, maybe give a few prototypes to sworn-to-secrecy customers to test, then launch at a major conference.

Today it has all changed, at least if you have a product that people care about. Fan sites like Nikon Rumors avidly parse every scrap of information they find, distilling it to arrive at what have turned out to be largely accurate predictions of the manufacturer press announcement.

I suspect that more than a little of this is deliberately stoked by the manufacturers themselves. But that is not necessarily out of choice. Even if the rumor is false it may cause real customers to put off real purchases.

As a result we can be fairly certain that next month Nikon will announce what will be hailed as the worlds best camera - if you have $5000-$6000 to spare. And we can be reasonably sure it will be called either the D3x or the D3z and it will have a resolution of 24MP.

Nikon Rumors is somewhat less accurate when it comes to lenses rather than camera bodies. This is probably because a camera body requires extensive beta-testing by photographers in the field while lens testing can be accomplished in house.