Day4 posted the details of the ruse — how it planted the evidence on Reddit, how eager bloggers reposted the evidence as a “rumor,” and how readers end up perceiving the story to be a fact nonetheless — on its company blog Monday:

One afternoon we sketched out a screw in our 3D program, a very strange screw where the head was neither a star, tracks, pentalobe or whatever, but a unique form, also very impractical. We rendered the image, put it in an email, sent it to ourselves, took a picture of the screen with the mail and anonymously uploaded the image to the forum Reddit with the text ”A friend took a photo a while ago at that fruit company, they are obviously even creating their own screws ”.

Then we waited …

Blogs from Wired to Yahoo to MacWorld and Cult of Mac picked up on it within 12 hours and reposted it, labeling it as a rumor. But, as Day4 explains, the vast majority of readers took the news report of the rumor and begin discussing it as if it were 100 percent true.

We know Day4 isn’t the only group that has tried something like this. With the prevalence of Apple rumor blogs, and the speed of social media, any story about Apple with a whiff of semi-plausibility has near-instant re-blog potential. (In this case it was plausible because Apple does use a tamper-resistance screw in the iPhone.) Plenty of those rumors can have real-world consequences too — like, say, a 2007 rumor that the iPhone and OS X Leopard were delayed, which sent Apple’s stock into a fast dive. But it’s not even confined to gadget blogs. Who can forget former CNBC host Jim Cramer explaining, on camera, how he could easily manipulate Apple stock just by passing along some vaguely sourced rumor about potential iPhone partnerships?

As cynical as the Day4 exercise was, it demonstrates how fast a totally unsourced image from an internet forum can be repackaged and given credibility just by appearing on a popular Apple news source — even with a rumor tag. Changing the screws on an iPhone is something that gets only a handful of people who buy Apple products truly riled up — some Apple bloggers could be included in this group. That’s probably why Day4 chose such a topic: it was sure to get the attention of Apple bloggers but probably wouldn’t cause any major damage to the company’s brand or product sales potential. But the main message? Day4 says it’s just trying to encourage readers to think critically about what it reads on blogs.

Image courtesy of Flickr user zalouk webdesign

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Intel solar spinoff SpectraWatt has put its plans to build a factory in Hillsboro, Ore., on hold after being unable to get enough financing, The Oregonian reported this week.

CEO Andrew Wilson told the newspaper that SpectraWatt is searching for an existing building that it could retrofit for less, and it is considering leaving the state. He also said the change of plans will delay SpectraWatt’s first solar-cell shipments by five or six months.

The company, which was raising a $50 million round of funding led by Intel in June, said then that it expected to ship its first solar cells from a 60-megawatt factory in the middle of this year. SpectraWatt didn’t respond to requests for more information Thursday afternoon.

The setback is the latest sign of tough times for solar companies. As a recession is making capital scarce, analysts are predicting an oversupply of solar panels that could lead to a pricing plunge. Jenny Chase, a senior associate for solar at New Energy Finance, expects some 4 gigawatts of panels to go begging this year.

Signs of trouble are everywhere. For one, take all the layoffs. In just the last month, Day4 Energy , GT Solar, Emcore and Advanced Energy all have announced layoffs, and analysts say more are coming.

“There’s going to be a lot of that,” said Nathaniel Bullard, a senior analyst at New Energy Finance. “Expansion plans are difficult to do and it’s hard for people to forecast the market [in the next year]. Margins are going to be compressed.” Of course, layoffs are happening all over the technology map.

Other solar projects also are being canceled and delayed. In November, BP Solar announced that it would close a solar-cell factory in Sydney at the end of March. The news came after the company in October scrapped a $97 million expansion it had planned for a solar-ingot factory in Maryland. In December, German solar-cell manufacturer Q-Cells temporarily halted production at its factory, to clear stock, while U.S. solar-cell maker Evergreen Solar suspended plans for an $800 million factory in Asia and closed its pilot plant in Massachusetts.

And earlier this week, LDK Solar reported that its first polysilicon plant had not fully ramped up by the end of last year, as previously promised, and now expects to reach full production in the middle of this year. The company plans to produce between 3,000 and 5,000 metric tons of polysilicon this year instead of the previously expected 5,000 to 7,000 metric tons.

At the same time there are a few brighter signs pointing in the opposite direction. Suniva last month opened a 32-megawatt solar-cell factory in Georgia and plans to grow its capacity to more than 100 megawatts in the next two years. Sharp Corp. also said this week it would build a previously announced solar plant by the end of this year, which is earlier than expected.

Industry insiders believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel. With climate-change and energy-security concerns growing globally, analysts say they have no doubt that the solar industry will survive this downturn, and it could come out ahead if lower prices gain it a larger market. But before that happens, you can expect more bad news ahead.

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