Product vs Project: Amateurs Writing News

When there's a new and overheated field, it's not unusual for product makers to get a bit ahead of themselves. Civilians wonder why the media writes so much about Apple products before they come out, but at least Apple products (most of them, anyway) ultimately wind up existing. I get irritated with Apple, and with the media, but at least these are pros who are following an obscure if annoying set of established practices.

With wearables, there are just too many amateur projects posing as products, and too many amateur writers posing as journalists. As a result, stuff gets written about as if it exists when nothing could be further than the truth.

Case in point: the blogosphere has been lit up for the last few days about a wristband that could measure your alcohol intake and alert your friends when you've had too much. It was on a network affiliate TV station, a bunch of wearables and gadget sites covered it, Marie Claire wrote about it -- a lot of places. Except none of the stories had a link to where you could buy it.

Here's why: it doesn't really exist. Marie Claire called it a "non-working prototype." In other words, it's a design project, out of the University of Washington, it turns out. It's an idea. It's not even a prototype. It's basically a bunch of people sitting around thinking, "wouldn't it be neat, if..."

Back in the early-ish days of PCs, products got reviewed (and even put on magazine covers) without ever shipping -- hence the term "vaporware." That was a mistake. The publishing industry got smarter about that, as did the makers.

Now it's happening again, all the damned time. And as a professional, frankly, it makes me mad because it doesn't serve anyone -- least of all readers, who are being promised flying cars that they'll never ever see.