No Fact Checking Necessary: Myth Of Cameraphone Inventor Lives On

Overhype

from the fact-checking?--whazzat? dept

Just a month and a half after News.com’s Michael Kanellos showed that Philippe Kahn clearly was not anywhere near being the first to build a “cameraphone” (and even that Kahn’s device was simply a camera connected to a phone, rather than a “cameraphone,” and Olympus had offered a similar product on the market three years earlier) the Associated Press has come out with an article all about Kahn being the inventor of the cameraphone, supposedly created to help tell people about the birth of his kid. Given the number of stories being pushed in the last few months about Kahn as the inventor of the cameraphone, it has all the makings of a PR campaign to support his latest company, which is still in stealth mode. PR people love to use these types of stories to hook the press, even if they’re not true. It’s like the story of the inspiration for eBay, where supposedly Pierre Omidyar’s girlfriend collected Pez dispensers and wanted a better way to buy and sell them. That story was totally made up, but the press loved it. So, watch out. When you start hearing stories about how I invented blogging because I knew the world needed a better way to communicate, you can just assume Techdirt has hired a new PR person.