The Beauty of Rumors & Speculation
People don’t realize how powerful rumors and speculation can be, it’s basically like getting an exclusive story, except it’s unconfirmed, or based on a dodgy source. The thing is, people don’t care if it’s a little dodgy, of course some may be going ‘fake, that’d never happen’, but a lot of people will go ‘hmmm, that’s interesting’ – on numerous occasions I’ve picked up some speculation from friends, posted it on my gaming site, and suddenly had a bunch of people posting on forums going “Hey, check out this site, it says that this thing is happening”.
Where to get Rumors?
Make them Up
Not the most ethically-correct way, but nevertheless a powerful tool. Make up some story claiming you have an insider that ‘leaked’ this information.
Here is an example:
I was browsing this Nintendo Wii Forum, and someone posted this huge list of supposed facts of Nintendo Wii secrets, claiming they got it from the yet-to-be-released Game Insider (gaming magazine). There was some pretty far-out speculation in there, and it was a very dodgy source but even so, within 24 hours it had been posted on many major gaming sites, and forums. It was later confirmed that it was a load of crap.
Your Own Speculation
This is similar to making up rumors except you have some sort of “evidence” to back it up. Say someone from Nintendo said “The Nintendo Wii graphics will surprise most” – you could kind of take these words and speculate saying “It seems that Nintendo is hinting at the possibility of PS3-quality graphics”. Speculating is all about taking something small and making it seem like a big issue.
Forum Rumors
Forums (at least the gaming ones) are filled with rumors and speculation about companies intentions and products, each day I go to forums and each day I see more posts bout “insider information”, and “leaked details” – it doesn’t matter if it’s a load of crap – just post this as news on your site and try to make it sound official (but don’t forget to say your source, otherwise you’ll get blamed once it’s found out it’s all complete garbage).
Submit to Digg!
You should do this with all your best stories, and especially your rumors, as I find Digg users just love speculation. I got over 6000 Unique Visitors from Digg by simply posting some speculation about a “Hidden Slot” on the Nintendo Wii.
The Trickle Effect
With the article I posted above, I noticed a trickle effect. Within the first day of posting it, viewers had link to my site from IGN.com, Revo-Europe.com, and various other gaming resources.
