Blogoshpere Gone Wild: Top Blogs Play Telephone with Nissan

I saw an interesting article pop up last week about Nissan developing color changing paint... Sounded like something perfect to blog about on my color + design blog, so to confirm the story, I sent an email into Nissan Motors and they were nice enough to call me back. Turns out Nissan has no idea where this current web urban legend originated from and they confirmed that they aren’t developing color changing paint.

As I tried to search for where the story originated, I stumbled into the blogging equivalent of a childhood game of telephone. How exactly did this rumor spread in 3 days from a small energy news site to some of the highest trafficked auto & technology blogs on the web? Could Wired, GizModo, Engadget, Jalopnik, etc. really have been part of such a badly spun web of news?
 
Follow us post by post in the latest game of Blogophone...
 
Around November 6th, NextEnergyNews.com put up a story about the color changing paint technology being developed. They explained the basics of how this technology works, but they set this all off when they mention Nissan in passing::

Scientists Develop Auto Paint That Changes Color With the Press of a Button The process starts out with a standard galvanized piece of automotive sheet metal steel. A special polymer is applied to the steel with superparamagnetic iron oxide particles embedded within it. The nanoscale crystalline particles of magnetite (iron oxide) are controlled using a low grade magnetic field which is used to effect the spacing of the colloidal crystals and thereby controlling their ability to reflect light and change color. The coatings are perfect for an automotive application because a continuous small magnetic charge is needed to keep the desired color active and the driver also has the ability to turn off the system at which time the vehicle turns back to its default color of white. ... This revolutionary new paramagnetic paint is a technical wonder and is viewed by Nissan and other auto companies as an amazing innovation...

 
What seems to be the first blog to pick this up, luxvelocity doesn't add much to the story, but a little suggestion of a sexy Nissan spotscar to imagine this feature on...

Paramagnetic Paint: Change the Color of Your Vehicle at the Touch of a Button Fancy the White color on your soon to be ordered Nissan GTR?

 

This is Where the Blognannegans Really Begin...

Motor Authority picked up the story, and definitely got inspired by luxvelocity... they added fancy image of a red, black and white Nissan GTR and connected the recently released Self-Healing paint by Nissan to this new technology.

Paramagnetic paint changes color at the touch of a button One carmaker looking into the technology is Nissan, which has already developed a self-healing paint.

 
World Car Fans didn't like all the white that Motor Authority used in their example picture and scaled it back to just a strip... but what they added as the source tag for the image is probably what helped this thing rocket out of control.

Advanced Paintjob that Changes Colour at the Touch of a Button Nissan pioneering 'self-healing' paints

 
Taking the same red and black car from WordCarFans, Jalopnik continues the story:

The New Switcheroo: Electrical Chameleon Paint Changes Color It's the next step from Nissan's self-healing paint, a paramagnetic paint system that can change color from a default of white to a range of shades.

 
Going off of Jalopnik's connection of the color changing paint that Nissan actually has developed Mobile Magazine merges the two:

Nissan's Magical Electric Paint Changes Colors on the Fly Nissan is working on some sort of self-healing paint system that can actually change color based on your mood. Just flip the switch on the dash and your Sentra goes from white to red to black to whatever other color you want. It's not a whole new paint job; the actual paint itself is changing color.

 
Crediting Mobile Mag as the source for thir post, but playing off Jalopnik's Chameleon title... Wired goes full in on the Nissan invention thing. At least Wired knows that red is so 2006 and it is all about going Green in 07... they updated the example car image:

Carma Chameleon: Nissan Developing Color-Changing Auto Paint Nissan's set out to make life difficult for the police, developing auto paint that changes color when tickled with an electrical current... Nissan hopes to have something ready to sell by 2010...

 
Gizmodo doesn't credit a source for their story, but judging by the Red and Black Nissan image they use and considering they are in the same blog family as Jalopnik... we have a pretty good idea where they were getting their information:

Nissan Developing Color Changing Paint But we're really excited over Nissan's surely bogus but juicy claim to have the technology on the market extremely soon, by 2010 if possible...

 

Another Strain of the Motor Blog Rumor...

I'm not sure how Auto Blog picked this story up so late in the game from Motor Blog and managed not to credit or even mention Nissan with this new technology, they even used a multicolor Polo image too.

Don't dig your paint? Change it with the touch of a button.

 
Engadget credits Autoblog as their source, but obviously went all the way back to Motor Blog for a majority of their content. They apparently weren't digging on the Rainbow-Polo and went back to the Red, Black and White Nissan and started back up the conversation again:

Paramagnetic paint lets you change your car's color on a whim Sure, the whole "temporary vehicle paint" idea was a fine concept if you adored hassles, but Nissan's got a much cleaner approach for those who appreciate easy. Yep, the same folks who dreamed up that self-healing paint some two years back are now talking up their paramagnetic concoction, which purportedly enables motorists to change the color of their ride at the press of a button.

 

Continuing On from World Car Fans...

It wasn't just Jalopnik that picked up the story from Word Car Fans, Daily Tech continued on connecting even more dots. Oh and they weren't all about the red either... they went with a subtle Gray and Black color choice. (Unfortunately most of the readers of DailyTech were more concerned with the use of word Twist instead of Torque to notice that there was no truth to 90% of the article.)

Nissan Develops Color Changing Paint for Vehicles Nissan hopes to give car buyers the ability to choose whatever color they like for their vehicle -- at any time. Nissan has developed what it calls a "paramagnetic" paint coating -- a unique polymer layer which features iron oxide particles is applied to the vehicle body... ...Nissan is hard at work on the paramagnetic paint and hopes to have it on production vehicles by 2010.

 
And finally from NewLaunches...

Nissan's "paramagnetic" paint coating allows you to change car color at the flip of a switch Bored with the white, wanna change the color of the car to classic black? No sweat, just flick a switch and…voila! The color has gone from white to black. It's not some sci-fi stuff that I'm dishing out, but its something Nissan has been working on for a while.

Yeah, they've been working on it for about 3 days or so according to the blogosphere.
 

From This... to... What?

So in only 3 days, the details of the story went from:
"viewed by Nissan and other auto companies"
to...
"Nissan talking up their bogus but juicy claim to have developed a self-healing paint system that can actually change color based on your mood, will be on production vehicles by 2010"
 
In the interests of full disclosure, I accidentally started a pretty major game of blogophone early last week. I was pointed to an article about T-Mobile having a German trademark on the color "magenta� and wrote up a post about it, doing some quick research and grabbing what facts I could find about the trademark and the lawsuits they had filed against companies who were using that color.

When I posted the article, with the title "BEWARE T-Mobil Owns the Color Magenta", the blogosphere erupted with buzz about t-mobile "owning" magenta, partially due to my playful use of that word in the blog title. Despite this trademark being in effect for 6 years, the post spread like wildfire, becoming more and more twisted as it went from blog to blog.

So what can bloggers learn from all of this? It is far too easy to pick-up and push along stories in the blogosphere. Every time we "hear and tell," a few of the details get transformed into something else. Bloggers and readers should do more to research the facts and original sources before jumping to the publish button. How else will we establish blogging as a credible, journalistic endeavor?
 
 
P.S. Did you guys hear that Apple has developed the first artificial intelligence home automation system? It will act like a butler turning lights on and off, answering the phone, playing your favorite songs based on your moods... And the iHome will be in stores by Christmas!