Boy Geniuses, RIM and clamshells

By Michael Hammond, Record staff

Last week provided a good lesson in the power of the internet as news broke that Research In Motion Ltd. is working on what was called a "clamshell" BlackBerry. In regular English, this means RIM is working on a flip phone. The story broke on a blog called the Boy Genius Report. The flip phone, which other blogs claimed to know about months ago, was unveiled to the world via this somewhat blurry photo on the Boy Genius website.

The story showed how traditional media organizations, such as The Record, need to keep a close eye on the blogosphere. There are a lot of people out there with highly specific blogs that make it their business to know as much as possible about a given subject.

The other lesson learned was to be careful with techno-speak. Most tech-specific blogs referred to the phone as a clamshell BlackBerry, which I found confusing, as did my colleagues. It looks nothing like a clamshell and only shares one thing in common with the mollusk in how it opens and closes. For the record, the photo below is a clamshell. Note the difference between it and the 'clamshell' BlackBerry.

A colleague of mine also passed along a blog entry about RIM and its apparent refusal to allow employees to enter their names into the LinkedIn business networking service. At the very least, the blog raises some interesting questions. You can read the entry by clicking here.

mhammond@therecord.com