By So, many of you have probably made note of the website that has been pimped on every picture and video in recent Nexus news. I for one have had their page and YouTube channel on my scan list for days – as to try to bring you whatever new details they gave as soon as possible.
Well, as the days dragged on with video after video and picture after picture emerging – each giving nothing more than the last – I got tired of it. I said to Rob this morning, “They posted another pointless picture. I know these guys are just trying to milk the attention they’re getting but this is just silly. I vote we post an article that says we give up and aren’t going to post another thing unless it’s something juicy – and readers can just frequent the site on their own if they really want to be strung along.”
But then things got a little strange.
So. Here’s what’s going on right now. First, that picture they posted this morning:
… was deleted a little while ago. I thought well, this is weird but.. their site has been bouncing back and forth since day one. One minute it’d be fine, the next a “bandwidth exceeded” message or a “..thanks for installing WordPress! Click here to blah blah..” type thing. I figured, eh, maybe they’re working off a restore. I’m sure they’ll repost the picture.
Well they didn’t, and few minutes ago not only did the site go down for the count (for real) but all the videos in their YouTube channel have been pulled too.
thenexusone.com | YouTube Channel
(Side note: one of the comments: “I hope someone who is willing to give a decent demonstration of this phone will steal it from you.” ..exactly our thoughts.)
So what does or could this mean? Something? Nothing? I don’t know guys, I’m throwing my hands up in the air. Maybe I’m doing exactly what they want and feeding into the craze and helping spread the craziness but.. I don’t know. I figured this was worth a mention and would give people a spot to speculate.
So what do you think? Is it some crazy plan to build hype? Someone just tryin’ to make a buck off ads or by selling the domain? Or did some guy just get seriously backhanded by Google?
Ready? Go.
So do we think it was a google employee who set it up or a friend to one? In the first case maybe google really struck hard at the employee. Who knows.
I think they were trying to milk the attention for ad sales, and maybe Google just bought their domain and they cashed out and that’s it.
I noticed the vids were pulled. I instantly thought it was google too… I can imagine the general internal email: “Whoever put those damn videos up, take them down now – or we’ll make sure the first google search of your name isn’t a nice one.”
The site is gone now.
haha, they got busted
I think the giant that we call Google decided to lift a finger and POOF there goes everything
I’d say its a mixture of all of the above. They were trying to profit off this device which may have been theirs or a friend of theirs and they got slapped by Google.
I took a look at the site directly last night.
Best I could figure is that someone was just trying to make some money off the ads on the site. There sure was plenty of ’em.
oh my god. just ignore them. come on, didnt your parents teach you that skill to use on other annoying classmates. just ignore them until they give you something important. like specs. cause once they give the specs is when i will be dissapointed in some area and just ignore it like the rest of there phones they throw out there
I think you’re milking this to raise this sites hits! The frenzy that is currently going on is a result of sites like this spreading unsubstantiated crap. I can understand wanting to bring the latest and greatest news to the hungry Android masses but what has been going on since this phone 1st appeared boreders on lunacy!!1
To be honest, they just over did it, plain and simple. I could completely understand if Google stepped in, as I’m sure their marketing stratagies don’t include such nonsense.
I think the time has come for everyone to CHILL OUT, and wait for a statement from Google. They are competing not only for a product, but for loyalty of the users who stand behind them, and rest assured that they won’t leave us hangin.
viral marketing only makes me angry and bitter. either keep it in the dark or release the specs. i also wish someone lacking a malicous brain would get their hands on the phone and do a full demo and shut these half assed videos up
has to be a trick. Youtube, which is owned by google…and the phones were only given to employees. so, why would an employee use a corporate property to give leaks to a big upcoming product? its google using their viral marketing. genius..that’s what it is.
“I don’t know guys, I’m throwing my hands up in the air. Maybe I’m doing exactly what they want and feeding into the craze and helping spread the craziness but.. I don’t know. I figured this was worth a mention and would give people a spot to speculate.”
I think I’m gonna be sick.
@jason: If you must spew.. spew into this.
I don’t think the word “drug” is appropriately used as a past-tense verb for “drag”. I believe the correct word is “dragged”. I’m not a typical grammar-Nazi, but I felt like pointing this out.
Now then…carry on, good sir.
So I was wondering the same thing. I even remember them posting a pic of the front of the phone with the following message:
to: engadget
from thenexusone
That post also linked to an engadget page with more pictures of two weird looking dudes who looked like they stepped out of a trance video playing with the phone.
That post was taken down in the morning when I checked the site again.
I really wish companies would just be frank with the leaks and admit that they’re doing it for media hype.
Nexus One is Google’s attempt to move the platform distribution from the version 1.6 and earlier to 2.0 or later. One way to solve the fragmentation problem is to have an affordable Google-subsidized phone as an incentive for people to switch or upgrade to latest Android API.
I’ve been watching that site since it launched.
It popped up on Saturday as soon as the phone’s name became public, running a barebones WordPress install with half the default WordPress placeholder text still up. It was clearly a rush job.
As far as I could tell, it was operated by a guy who had several other “keyword” based blogs going, so he’s either been shutdown or hit the big time and managed to sell the domain on.
If it’s the latter, it’s a great reward for six days of furious work!
Oh, and he was advertising on Twitter that he had some domain names for sale. Reckon he’s sold it, and will now be browsing car brochures.
@fupadroid: Which was our plan, as to why we didn’t post the new image this morning. (Well that and it’s a pointless picture). But the sudden pull of the site and youtube videos seemed strange, given the phone. So here we are. Thanks :)
@CJ: Aww, ya got me!
@Pope: Thanks!
I’m more interested in the inclusion of the headphones..Do you think Android 2.1 has an improved music player?
Looking at the leaked build screenshots of the home screen etc. It seems possible that that screenshot is one of the app “Car Home” ?
I agree that this site is posting pointless updates like this one. Please stick to informative NEW information. Im excited, but im getting more annoyed hearing the same junk over and over again.
My vote is that it’s viral marketing. They give their phone to an employee and pay them to set up a crappy blog and post pointless teasers, all the while everyone’s going crazy posting links to this pointless stuff and people are eating it up. It’s the best kinda viral marketing, because everything has been done so poorly that it doesn’t seem like “marketing” at all.
http://www.nexusoneblog.com is still going…. its full of many of the same silly pictures…
@espiritiv ~ this is the last time I checked a android fan community, seems to me there keeping everyone posted on the latest news. If you ever follow engadget, gizmodo or BGR they follow the same formula of sorts. Besides I’m happy they update there site as often as they do, makes my daily (hourly) refreshing of the site all that much more worth it.
and all of this will be forgotten once the next picture appears..
All your nexus one are belong to us!
My theory… Google knows that a certain percentage of their staff will leak when given a new phone, they know this will generate genuine viral marketing. This guy was one of the expected leaks and when the community went against him (after three days) they plugged him, figuratively. Now they wait for more leaks, and plug them when the net effect is negative.
I don’t know about everyone else, but if it doesn’t have an HDMI port. I’m still holding out before spending another couple hundred bones.
i personally thing google is leaking all the pics and vids as theyre way of teasing everyone and building up hype. i think this is how theyre gonna build up the hype and one day just release everything about the phone at once
I agree with J @ post 30. They knew that sending these into the wild would raise excitement. There was no reason for Google to list a finger beyond that. Everything else is all our doing.
The only time Google is going to do anything is when something moves into the negative. Then they pull out the NDA.
@mikey
So true. All of this bashing will be completely forgotten when a new pic of the Nexus One comes out.