Well, 2007 is finally behind us and on one hand, it was a great year for Apple. On the other in 2007 Apple learned a lesson about how viral marketing can easily backfire…even to the world’s best viral marketing company.
It all started middle of 2006 when a 9 year old girl wrote a letter to Apple suggesting improvements on her iPod nano. Apple’s law department swiftly responded: "Please no suggestions." Shea’s letter to Steve Jobs got picked up by CBS 5 news. And of course the bloggers had a field day. Apple eventually apologized to the little girl and they said they changed their corporate practices when responding to letters from children.
Then in January 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone. But they did it in an uncharacteristic (for them) way. Apple introduced the iPhone at MacWorld San Francisco and said it would be out in June. Now anyone who follows Apple knows they like to keep their products secret until a few days before general availability. But in this case, Apple gave the bloggers 6 months notice. And so the iPhone hype machine was inadvertently born. Here was a rare example of the hype getting away from Jobs and Company – pushing Apple to do unnatural things – like take engineers off of Leopard to ensure the iPhone shipped in June (it did, with only 2 days to spare)
Then, what seemed like a few weeks later, Apple refreshed the entire iPod line and introduced the iPod touch (which I believe was always intended to ship coincident with the iPhone but got delayed along with Leopard in order to ship the iPhone on time.) Along with this new line came a huge price cut on the iPhone – from $599 to $399 and the end-of-life of the newborn 4GB model. The bloggers had a bigger field day…and from those ashes the now famous iPology was born.
Now this iPology – a $100 credit to use in the Apple store and a personal admonishment to early adopters by Steve – did little to quiet the flames of discontent. And it didn’t end there for Apple. Apple decided to label their iPhone early adopters (the same audience Apple has long used to help spread the word for them) who had the audacity to add small programs to their own OS X powered breakthrough communication device as "hackers" and promptly began a small war against their own fanbase. Apple eventually did some minor damage control and sheepishly announced that an iPhone SDK would be available early in 2008.
The PR nightmare year ended with a final, unceremonious defeat at the hands of the young publisher of the blog "ThinkSecret" that Apple sued two years ago for leaking secrets. Apple attempted to save some face by requiring the blogger to shut down ThinkSecret and keep the settlement quiet.
So let’s hope that 2008 will be a great year for the bloggers and for Apple. We play our part in giving Apple enormous positive publicity when it deserves it and we will be swift to band together when we feel our Apple has a worm.
Why are you parroting the same incorrect assumptions as others have made? *No one*, other thank jumping-to-conclusion-bloggers, have *factually* said that Apple “forced” TS to shut down. Not Apple, not TS, not *anyone* who has the facts in hand.
Bloggers just make the assumption that big bad Apple bullied poor little Nick. There’s no evidence of that but it sure does make a nice hook for your story, doesn’t it? Facts be damned….
Apple could start by providing some real blogging software (not iWeb). They have the opportunity to explore a number of options including Lifli’s iBlog or they could go with another solution like Expressionengine. At the very least, they could make easy to install and configure PHP and SQL or preinstall them in OS X to deal with the hassle for most folks not familiar with the CLI.
Shall we start calling you Dvorak junior?
Surely you don’t really see the events as you’ve written in this 2007 recap?
This post sounds as thought it is written by an hysterical Apple hater (maybe, Enderle instead of Dvorak).
You probably won’t care but you just got booted from my RSS feed.
See ya’
Mitch,
I do care and I appreciate your comments. I am no hysterical Apple hater – quite the opposite – I admire and share Apple’s strategies for spreading the word. But lets face it, they did have a few about faces last year and the sentiment of their customers did help shift some priorities for Apple. I look at that as a good thing – how many companies would have given $100 rebate to early adopters? The point of this particular post is that even Apple can step in in once in a while. Doesn’t change my admiration for them…just gives me reason to evaluate and learn what they did right and wrong.
Shawn,
Thank you for your post as well. Actually I was stating that Nick won a moral and real victory over Apple, not the other way around. The fact that the settlement ended with ThinkSecret no longer being published could easily have been Nick’s decision to allow him to focus on his college studies. My point is that the fact it will no longer be published allowed Apple to save a little bit of face. I for one will miss ThinkSecret.
I don’t understand where all this venom is coming from. I thought the post was fairly factual – when initially reading the post I thought to myself, “Ah yes, I remember that…oh yes, that too…” etc. I haven’t gotten any “Apple Hating” vibe from you either. I am a fan of Apple, sporting an iPhone, Nano, MB Pro as well as MacPro desktop at work – but I wouldn’t claim they’re perfect. They make mistakes, just like every business does.
Yes, it could have easily been that. It could have easily been the “fact” that Apple promised him a pony to stop publishing, too.
My point is, you stated in the *original* article (which you have since modified without telling your audience you have done so) that Apple “forced” the closure. You have no evidence of that, just supposition.
But again, “Big Bad Apple Shuts Down Teen Web Site” is a much “hookier” story, isn’t it?