What you don’t know is more interesting than what you know. It’s a fundamental tenet of the news business. Read any reputable (or disreputable, for that matter) news outlet and at least half of the stories will be about not what happened, but what might happen.

Apple understands this. Like perhaps no other company in history, Apple has been able to tap in to the insatiable desire to fantasize and speculate. They understand that the possibility of that asteroid hitting the earth in maybe 30,000 years, and the speculation on what kind of damage might ensue, is far more titillating than the fact that the Vredefort crater was determined to be a massive meteor strike two-billion years ago.

This week’s purported unveiling of the iSlate or iPad – or whatever Apple will call it tomorrow – takes advantage of speculation and the great “What-if?” in news reporting. The company’s apparent ability to inculcate employees to be silent allows them to nurture the world’s natural wonder, and the media’s desire to feed it. Time and again, Apple leaks just a smidgeon of detail and sits back and enjoys the priceless buzz.

Other gizmo-makers try to generate buzz about new products, but generally fall far short of Apple’s skill at saying nothing, except for very tiny controlled leaks that provide just enough information to get the media salivating. Apple is probably better than any significant organization on earth – corporation, government, religion, sect, club – at keeping its people quiet. Simply put, other organizations’ employees blab and leak far too much, ending the speculation and interest.

Palm’s launch of the Pre successfully tapped in to the What-if? strategy. [Disclosure: an Environics client.] The company let out just enough information to keep interest and speculation percolating, and the product lived up to the buzz.

The auto and fashion industries like to take the opposite tack: they unveil concept cars and haute couture, gauging public reaction to and acceptance of design extremes, then ultimately soften the final retail versions, thereby mitigating the risk of failure.

While Apple taps in to the speculative news strategy perfectly, such methods can backfire when the ultimate product fails to live up to the hype. The Apple Newton is the example routinely, and probably unfairly, trotted out. The aptly named Newton laid a foundation for a whole range of devices and concepts, culminating perhaps in the “iSlate.” Further, Apple learned from the Newton “failure” that they can be far more successful letting others make mistakes first, then come in with a killer product.

Deploying successful teasing marketing strategies takes great discipline by all concerned, and it also takes years to build up credibility that gets people to listen to cheap talk, because they expect fantasy fulfillment at launch. You have to deliver on the pent-up anticipation that you created with the media, and one or two lunch-bag-letdowns will destroy years of banked cachet.

Communications professionals can take advantage of human beings’ innate awe of the great unknown that very often forms the basis of “news.” By exploring that desire for What-if? through sneak-peaks, controlled leaks or even something as simple as a corporate leader speculating about his or her vision of the future, the communications value can have the impact of a marketing asteroid.