Is Google Trolling Us?
Jon Prosser from Front Page Tech has seemed to stir up some chatter with the claim that Google might be faking the whole Pixel 3 XL leak thing and the deep dives of the Internet are taking notice. So is it the real deal? The video above showed up last night on FPT and it seems convincing?
First things first, while Jon is sometimes a cocky dude and you want to slap him in the face. I believe him. Why? Because his analysis has been pretty much on point the past 12 months. The question is in this day an age how could Google hide such a thing if it were to be true. Let’s play a little fan fiction….
Google HQ ~Sometime Early this Year
So the head of engineering walks in to see the new devices and is like..
“Damn that’s a nice device”
The thing that he wonders about is how they are going to keep it a secret. One of the more playful engineers basically says..
“We can create a fake phone and leak it just for the LOL’s”
The team laughs at the joke, but the head of engineering stays thinking. So he responds..
“Yes, lets do that we are going to play the most craziest joke to the tech community ever. Start planning that immediately”
Now the engineering team thinks their boss is playing around. So they check to confirm, where he immediately tells that…real talk I am not playing and this is how we are going to do it.
The Grand Scheme
Stage 1: The only people who will know about this plan is key executives at the top. The rest of the company must think this other device is the real device. It must work and act like the real device.
Stage 2: What Device? The team uses one of the older Pixel 2 prototypes and adds a garish notch on it, and sends the device out to a small device maker in China to build the units. The team figures they will build about 500 devices and the cost of everything will run about $200 per device. The budget for this exercise will come from the Pixel 3’s marketing budget with the line item “Social Media Campaign”
Stage 3: A member of the Engineering team in Easter Europe is chosen to be the secret black market dealer that will not only accept shipment of the fake devices but strategically sell them to random Russian tech YouTuber.
Stage 4: Commence Operation Leaky Faucet. Operation will include run throughout a 2 -3 month period a series of strategically place and orchestrated leaks to increase press and coverage. This operation will also include select unknowing Googlers who will receive Pixel 3 devices to Dog Food. One of the engineers uses the Cloud TPU engine to run analytics on the lost and found page to see who will be the most likely Youtubers to lose their device or show it in public unknowingly. The top 5 people are included in the Google dog fooding campaign.
Stage 5: Protect the Leaks: Anytime something seems to get close to what is really going on, release another Pixel 3 XL leak. Flood the tech media with leaks, ensure they are not paying any attention to anything outside of the leaks. Let the Googlers and other leaks happen organically, make this leak an epic event
Stage 6: Observe and report social media for the small tech Yotubers that seem to have the most over the top responses to the Pixel 3 XL. These will be later used in a montage during the event. Select a YouTuber to contact without a NDA that is believable but still fallible. And not huge in the tech community. Someone with 75k-100k subs will work. While the story is out confuse the tech press so they don’t know what to believe, but leans on just click bait.
Stage 7: Operation Shock and Awe. Announce the Goods at this years event. Sit back and watch as you make tech announcement history.
Why This Could be True?
So one of the main reason why I think this is true because of our obsession with leaks. Leaks are a big business in China and I am sure Google and everyone else knows this. So while companies try to keep things under wraps as long as possible it is inevitable that things will leak.
If true Google would have effectively used distraction to not only steer the press away from what they were doing but to create a very believable narrative that this is actually the real device.
Now you may ask: Well sooner or later it will probably leak? Sure maybe, but now leakers are focused on the new iPhone. iPhone leaks are at a premium now so nobody is really looking hard for Pixel device leaks. So if Google now decides to ramp up production of a “real” device, well…nobody will be looking for it as 1) Everyone thinks it has already leaked so nobody cares and 2) Everyone wants iPhone leaks.
In the end, if true, it is pure genius, and something this boring tech cycle needs.
