Apple's Ad Agency Goes After Mac Rumour Sites 164
lythari writes "ZDNet is reporting that Apple's advertising agency is threatening several publications carrying Apple ads to stop printing Apple rumours or else Apple will stop advertising with them. " Hmmm...can you say "Bad Karma"?
Re:Freedom of speech? (Score:1)
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
It was a computer for my mother, my grandmother, uncle fred. Why would they need a debugger? they wanted little pictures.
but then again... why am I bothering to respond to some phony elite twerp.
to them its a freekin toaster. they have no passion for this thing you can't function without. It's a toaster and the mac made white toast.
Oh come on. (Score:1)
Get a grip, people. Apple's just a company, doing regular company stuff. They percieve possible damage, they do damage control. Big deal.
Re:Um, Apple, They're some of your BEST advertisin (Score:2)
I'm not saying that Apple is right in what they're doing, it would be better for them to just leak ridiculous rumors and a) undermine their credibility and b) fire any paid employees who leak secrets.
Re:Let them eat silence (Score:2)
Ummm, what?
I think Slashdot should from this point forward replace the Apple icon in its stories with a photo of Steve Jobs in Stalin's moustache.
This really underlines an important point. Despite what people might think, Apple is not a government. It is a for-profit company. Apple is not responsible for the coverup of the discovery of aliens. Jobs did not assissinate JFK. They're not trying to prevent you from watching DVDs on Linux, or even preventing you from downloading Metallica MP3s.
ALL Apple is doing is deciding to not pay the people that are taking information on their unannounced products (some that may never even make it to market), and selling it in a magazine for personal gain. Most of these magazines and online publications are for-profit organizations. They are taking something from Apple, and attempting to make a quick buck off it. Why would Apple continue to buy advertising from these people? I don't see anything immoral about this. They're voting with their checkbook.
He's better than Bill, alright--even a better power-drunk, paranoid Tyrant.
What's amusing is that Gates is doing such a good job at what he does that you actually believe Apple/Jobs is more harmful to the industry/society than Microsoft/Gates. When was the last time Microsoft released an open source OS, of any kind? Or an open source streaming media server? How much innovation has Microsoft really brought to the industry?
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
Funny, I thought it had more to do with the extreme price of the NeXT cubes, and the fact that you had to buy hardware. (The same reason BeBox never went far.)
Apple survived because they had a niche in the graphics market, even though they also forced you to buy hardware. NeXT didn't really have a niche, AFAIK.
beauty is only skin deep. cube looks great, and tons of problems. aqua looked "lickable" but worked horrible.
What exactly are the "tons of problems" with cubes? As for Aqua working horribly, I've never heard that. Then again, it's a matter of taste.
Personally, I like BeOS best.
-thomas
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Nobody is suing anybody (Score:2)
Ummm, nobody is suing anybody in this story. Apple just doesn't want to keep giving money to the people that are pre-announcing their products for them.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:They do have a point, but their methods blow (Score:3)
Apple can spend their advertizing dollars where ever they want, but not spending them at the rumors sites would be stupid. Further, trying to stop the rumor sites is stupid. Consider:
1) People that use Macs are often fanatics (I am not using the word in a bad way, I simply mean that people that buy Macs tend to be "Mac owners" people that buy PC's (with a number of exception) tend to be "people that have computers"). They actually are interested in their platform above and beyond its usefulness as a tool.
2) Because of this they tend to hang around on Mac sites (rumor based or otherwise). They enjoy these sites, they like to learn about their platform.
3) By carrying out this threat Apple is doing three things (Well, more than that, but I choose to list these three): Pissing off the people that own, run and work on the sites, most of whom are Mac fans and users, but may well turn against a company that repeatedly treats them like crap. Pissing off users who will have to either watch their favorite sites cave and become less interesting or stand up and loose money, all because of a company that both the user and the site try to support. Loosing advertiseing eyeballs in a group that is most suseptable to buying their product.
So basically they are choosing a route that decreases the value of their marketing and risks alienating some of their greatest supporters in an effort to control rumors, which as often as not serve as advertising in and of themselves. Do we see a hole in this theory?
The limits of karma in America, and ethics again (Score:1)
Instead of taking the hard way out of the rumors (building better products), Apple decided to take the easy, stereotypical, "corporate ultimatum" way out.
Exactly. Well put, and a lesson we all could apply in everyday life. The hard way is to repair yourself. The easy way is to blame others. Period.
And, regarding karma. The misapplication of karma was bothering me until the writer from India clarified it, and I realized the misapplication is actually simple a neologism, and therefore I now like it! Karma is being used like a void pointer because the conversation is not Indian, but is now going beyond the narrow definition of karma which is applied by people who specialize in it. Thank God for idiots.
The beauty of ignorance is that it can recreate a more functional version of something as limited as karma by simply misunderstanding it. "Karma" as it is used lately here has none of the implications of reincarnation, which is a limited and finite way of looking at things. I prefer the more infinite version that is attached to ONE lifetime, with eternal consequences. That makes what we do here less bound to karma, and more bound to grace. -Water Paradox
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
B.S.
Apple's downturn in sales of that era dwarfed the number of clones sold. Unless people were choosing to buy 1 PowerTower instead of the 10 PowerMacs they'd been planning to buy before, you need to find another explanation.
Besides, cloners were paying license fees. If the issue had *really* been sales loss, Apple could have just set the license fee equal to their expected profit on the version of the machine that the clone would have competed with. Instead, Apple just pulled the plug on the program.
Re:tisk tisk, steve has quite the temper (Score:1)
Trouble is, though, Apple has cut some serious corners on their once immaculate quality. The new iMacs are made by GOLDSTAR in Korea. Now if that isn't a schlock house, I don't know what is. Then again, they aren't alone...IBM is now pimping the once mighty Thinkpad name to Acer, and guess what? The A and i Series of Thinkpads are crap.
Apple's hardware used to be the standard other computers were measured by. Why do people collect old Macs? Because they are STILL USEFUL MACHINES. And they were BUILT. People still use IIfxes and SE/30s because they are tough little customers.
Hell, I love my LCIII+ (actually a Performa460, built before Performa = crap) because it is an useful machine that with its FPU installed can actually run Photoshop 3 at a usable speed. It's small...7 pounds for the CPU. It's efficient...uses about as much energy as a table lamp. Maybe I can't play Quake on it or watch Flash movies on it or play MP3s, but I used the thing to build websites up until I got my G3.
The pro-level Macs, the G3s and G4s and Powerbooks, are still made with the kind of craftsmanship that made Apple's bones. But my friend's iMacDV is a total freakin' lemon that requires use in almost a refrigerator environment because The Steve doesn't like case fans. Fsck that.
--.\\<-H--
The fools. (Score:1)
Apple tries to throw it's weight around... but wait, what weight? They end up just shooting themselves in the foot because they've got so little leverage.
Sounds to me a bit like a company-sized ego problem.
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
How'd you manage to have a //e three years before they were released? That's a pretty good trick.
Re:Apple has gone down hill (Score:1)
Fire the marketing maggots and hire more programmers.
Re:Well the course of action is obvious. (Score:1)
LOL! Very, very true. Let us not forget that a lot of the FUD that came out during the "death watch" days for Apple came straight from InHell.
It's truly lovely to see AMD eat InHell's lunch with the Gigahertz war and all. ;-)
--\\<-H--
Re:I've said it before... (Score:2)
I infer that you have never seen PC Magazine. 1995 award for Technical Excellence: Windows 95.
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What's the point of news when it's no longer news? (Score:2)
Well, at least... (Score:1)
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Re:#1 rule of journalism. (Score:2)
Yeah, right. I worked in the print media, too. And I've watched technology publications whore themselves out to the highest bidder. The company I work for [cyberelves.com] was approached in the last few months by a supposedly reputable tech rag; the salesweasel flat out told the General Manager than editorial column inches on us were entirely dependant on buying an ad - the bigger the ad, the more column inches.
The seperation is generally considered cleaner in more mainstream publications, but there are well-known [salon.com] examples of so-called respectable publishers selling themselves to the highest bidder.
What I want to know... (Score:2)
It just doesn't make any sense, like a 6 foot wookie living on Endor.
PMS (Score:1)
"Apple Computer : Proudly going out of business for over 20 years"
Imagine this news: (Score:1)
agencing is threatening several publications
carrying Microsoft ads to stop printing Microsoft
rumours or else Microsoft will stop advertising
with them. "
MS made great (call it abusive) use of rumours.
Why cant apple let the word flow ? I dont see
a good reason to stop it, unless its diffamatory
or with the purpose of harm.
Everybody likes rumours. Its gossip, attention.
its hype. Man, rumours (good ones) are free
advertisement.
bitter apple (Score:5)
since he's taken over he's managed to:
kill the clones
kill the newton
bring back the closed, all-in-one, non-upgradable mac (iMac and Cube)
throw NeXTOS on top of new hardware (sorry OSX is NeXT in mac's clothing)
threaten to sue a few dozen web sites
just about squash publication of a book that doesn't portray him as a god
act like a spoiled brat when ATI let the cat out of the bag a little early (like we didn't know anyway?)
Sell out Apple to Microsoft.
Piss off game developers.
Piss off 3rd parties with constant color switches.
Failed to give the users/consumers many of the things they have asked for, 6 slot systems, voice recgonition, multi-button mice, etc.
Turn Apple's once great, free support into clueless, expensive, too-long-on-hold waste of time (example: call up with a broken mouse and they insist you reinstall the OS. hello??? yes, this happened to me. their tech support are clueless and only know how to read a script)
sue their own (ex)employees
go from a happy-friendly image to one of a closed, grey corporate environment.. kinda like what they didn't want in their 1984 ad. hmm.. Is that jobs we now see on the big screen?
What's up with this? I think someone needs to take Jobs over their knee and spank him a few times. Doesn't he know how to play nice with everyone else? Apple's market share sucks and by pissing off the only fans and users they have it's going to drop even more.
Apple - (Score:1)
Re:Clarification of the issue (Score:1)
Um, i recieved an email, while on the Apple Mailing List about the iMac about 2 months before it came out. And I couldn't believe it didn't have a disk drive. They gave a lot of info about it out, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one on that list. rick.
Re:Clarification of the issue (Score:2)
The iMac was "introduced" aka "announced" aka "unveiled" at a media event in May 1998. It shipped in August. Apple wasn't in danger of cutting into sales because there was no comparable machine (consumer centric) in the product line at the time.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:Bad Karma? (Score:1)
Pardon the pun, but you're talking apples and oranges.
It's not that rumors make the Mac look bad. It's that rumors (a) kill current sales while everyone waits for "the next big thing" and (b) tells competitors what's coming up so they can pre-announce it.
Not that I don't think this is a dumb policy, but there is a method to the madness.
-jon
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
guess you never tried aqua. you should have. inconsistencies in the interface, the dock, long list of complaints on this one too. the beta (which i'm running right now) isn't much better.
Re:Clarification of the issue (Score:2)
Just want to point out, may of the rumor sites began as "information for the people" sites, and only added banner ads to help cover costs as they grew. Very comparable to Slashdot in that respect, which now is also a commercial enterprise.
(not disagreeing with you, btw)
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Macs... (Score:1)
well, not exactly....
ok, not at all...
Re:bitter apple (Score:2)
since he's taken over he's managed to:
kill the clones
kill the newton
Development of HyperCard has also died; I'm not sure how much of that is Jobs' fault but he didn't help it any (Jobs never understood just what HyperCard was).
bring back the closed, all-in-one, non-upgradable mac (iMac and Cube)
Compare to this iPaq [compaq.com] from Compaq, or a NetVista [ibm.com] from IBM - why shouldn't Apple have a competing product? Nobody ever said you had to buy one.
throw NeXTOS on top of new hardware (sorry OSX is NeXT in mac's clothing)
Everyone I've talked to who's used NeXT systems absolutely loves them. Yes, Mac OS X is NeXTStep in Mac's clothing - what's wrong with that?
threaten to sue a few dozen web sites
They eventually figured it out, I think. They're suing their employees instead, so hopefully they'll leave the Web sites alone now.
just about squash publication of a book that doesn't portray him as a god
I think I missed that. What was the title of the book you're referring to, and what did Apple do?
act like a spoiled brat when ATI let the cat out of the bag a little early (like we didn't know anyway?)
Oh, and you're basing this information on rumor sites? In case you missed it, Apple just announced that they're offering the ATi Radeon as a BTO option on the Apple Store...
Sell out Apple to Microsoft.
What, you think Microsoft went into that willingly?!? Hell no. Apple forced them into it, to reassure the general public that Apple isn't dying. As part of the agreement, Microsoft paid Apple an undisclosed sum of cash (rumored to be around $400 million but I've heard other figures as well), invested $250 million in non-voting Apple stock, and publicly announced its support of Apple and the Mac platform, including committing to support Office and IE on the Mac OS.
Piss off game developers.
Which game developers are you referring to? John Carmack of id Software sounds ecstatic about Mac OS X (see my previous comment about NeXT users).
I'm hungry, I'm gonna go find dinner now.
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Re:bitter apple (Score:2)
kill the clones
Cloning was never set up properly. They should have had the clone makers go after markets that Apple didn't, instead they ended up cannibalizing Apple sales.
kill the newton
I agree, that sucked. The Newton would be awesome today if it had continued.
bring back the closed, all-in-one, non-upgradable mac (iMac and Cube)
They have Firewire, so you can add high-speed peripherals. With 100Mbps Ethernet built in, most people don't need PCI slots; if you do then get a G4 tower.
throw NeXTOS on top of new hardware (sorry OSX is NeXT in mac's clothing)
And that's bad why? The power and stability of Unix, a (mostly) great UI, what's the problem?
threaten to sue a few dozen web sites
just about squash publication of a book that doesn't portray him as a god act like a spoiled brat when ATI let the cat out of the bag a little early (like we didn't know anyway?)
No arguments here, those are all pretty tacky.
Sell out Apple to Microsoft.
Um, no. If you're talking about Microsoft's stock investment, Apple at the time was on the verge of death. They needed a vote of confidence, and apparently also had solid evidence that Microsoft had stolen code from them. In a sort of mutual blackmail, Apple agreed to promote IE while Microsoft agreed to continue with MS Office and make a public show of support.
Piss off game developers.
How? They adopted OpenGL instead of their proprietary Quickdraw3D and Id and other developers have been generally pleased from what I've seen.
Failed to give the users/consumers many of the things they have asked for, 6 slot systems, voice recgonition, multi-button mice, etc.
Extremely few users need more than 3 slots, you can buy an expansion chassis if you do. Jobs has demoed IBM's ViaVoice lots of times; I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up integrated into OS X. I have mixed feelings about the mouse; I personally use an Intellimouse (MS should really stick to hardware), but I've heard plenty of anecdotal evidence that non-techies are easily confused with left and right clicking.
Turn Apple's once great, free support into clueless, expensive, too-long-on-hold waste of time
If true, that's obviously bad, and I've heard many other negative reports. On the other hand, I've had to call support exactly once in 5 years.
I think someone needs to take Jobs over their knee and spank him a few times. Doesn't he know how to play nice with everyone else? Apple's market share sucks and by pissing off the only fans and users they have it's going to drop even more.
Apple's market share is increasing, and their stock has soared in the last two years. I disagree with a lot of what Jobs has done, but he's obviously doing some things right. As an Apple shareholder, I'm glad he's there.
who'll be the winner (Score:1)
Look for things to heat up when Rambus starts suing everybody that uses DDR in anything. I think Apple's only choice will be to respond by suing anyone with a product name that start small i capital consonant.
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
So, im supposed to upgrade my graphics card by plugging it into my ethernet port? Or get a firewire soundcard? I'm having difficulty seeing how im supposed to fit a PCI card in such a manner.
I honestly dont know anyone who has less than 3 expansion cards fitted in their system, and those who do are planning to fit an extra one at some point.
Nick
is apple starting to suck? (Score:1)
I'd think they have to have a backlash sometime soon.
Imagine a company that makes you GLAD that it's microsoft who has the monopoly.
________
Re:Let them eat silence (Score:1)
No, tha'ts not ALL they're doing. They are requesting, if you read the article, " a statement from each magazine's publisher or editorial department asserting that they do not participate in publishing rumors or speculation about Apple or Mac."
Even one of our much maligned western governments wouldn't have the gall to request in writing that a newspaper commit to never publishing speculative articles.
This doesn't strike you as coercive or extortive? You think we shouldn't criticize this sort of behavior? Its ok for corporations to demand editorial changes because they spend money advertising their products?
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
Of course, I haven't had any particular problems with my NeXT cube, other than an overwhelming desire to buy a matching subwoofer
So (Score:1)
Hemos! (Score:1)
What's an "agencing?" Don't you mean "agency?"
I got your bad karma right here.
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
Mac was/is the OS for idiots.
It was the great introductory OS and if you stuck with it you got good enough at the "voodoo" to get it to function the way you wanted it to
Things that made this idiots OS great:
- no CL...nothing underneath. If you wanted to 'troubleshoot' it was a matter of restarting and fiddling with intis. Archaic but it worked. (more or less)
-The GUI was all. Nuthin' more, nuthin less.
- It was an OS that the layman could understand. Logical, files, folders, hard drive on desktop, what ran the thing was in the system. You could pretty much put anything anywhere and it would work
-blah, blah, blah...
I think the switch to nix is gonna piss off a lot of people. They have no idea what they are getting into. And it is NEXT, its not a mac. All that is gone.
I bought my mother a MAC. I sure as hell wouldn't install Linux on her machine. I could see explaining about kernels to her.Right! But I can deal with telling her 'you see that smiley faced guy that says system'. And that's just the beginning. Lets not forget that a ton of technologies that Apple didn't abandon in the 90's and almost all of the mac users have gotten used to will be gone.
I think Steve screwed the pooch and this may just well be the real beginning of the end for apple.
Re:Not a new tactic at all (Score:1)
The small sites are the easiest to break. Apple aren't going to go after the big boys, who might hit back even harder than Apple can.
Bad karma (Score:2)
rumour.apple.com ? (Score:1)
Scenario #1.
Don't publish rumours - no interesting articles - only boring reviews - no people hitting the page - no ad revenue.
Scenario #2.
Publish rumours - people come - lots of page hits - no ads - no money to support - might as well be dead
I hope this isn't a rumour itself
Lot of publications goes down with this (Score:1)
Re:tisk tisk, steve has quite the temper (Score:2)
Whereas I won't be typing on a Mac because Apple chose to employ them. I was lining up a Mac laptop for my next work PC, but I don't think I'll bother...
When will these marketing people figure it out (Score:1)
Everyone who goes to a rumor site KNOWS that it's a rumor, and that whatever is there might never make it to production. The thing to realize is that it's 'inside information' that really peaks people's interest. It's what keeps people excited about the product/product line...
The auto companies have had 'concept vehicles' at auto shows forever because people like to see what could be coming down the road... Daimler-Chrysler took that idea, and brought it to production, and the results the hottest things around: Viper, Prowler, and etc.
When will these people learn to USE the tools rather than try to squash them?
The Lynching Mentality (Score:1)
Apply the logic here. The advertising agency, an Apple employee (*not* Apple), does not want its copyrighted work to appear on websites which focus on Apple products that don't exist. It's one bad employee and has nothing to do with Apple.
Now, go put away your tar and the feathers.
--Jeff
Well the course of action is obvious. (Score:1)
Don't display apple ads.
You can generate more revenue by publishing Apple rumours and displaying M$ and Intel ads.
M$ and Intel will even supply you with Apple rumours for free.
Re:Bad Karma? (Score:2)
Should a magazine buckle to the whims of it's advertisers, the public picks up on it, and it's popularity decreases. A great many trade journals are like this.
Like the copies of 'server/workstation Expert' I get in the mail for some reason. It's industry-funded tripe.
Re:The Lynching Mentality (Score:1)
It isn't the marketing department, it is the advertising agency (Chiat Day, I believe). If the marketing department were at fault, I would have a different reaction.
--Jeff
Re:The limits of karma in America, and ethics agai (Score:1)
Main Entry: 1grace Pronunciation: 'grAs Function: noun Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from Latin gratia favor, charm, thanks, from gratus pleasing, grateful; akin to Sanskrit grnAti he praises Date: 12th century 1 a : unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification b : a virtue coming from God c : a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
I think Slashdot system kinda mixes both. Your karma stay with you until you create a new login in which case you have a clean slate again!
The 'classical' karma theory is more aligned with Objectivism.
Neologism reminds of many instances within present day Indian culture. One funny one being the word 'Yankee'. Until I came to USA I didn't realise it actually meant to address a people. Back in India the punjabi town/village simpletons address this term to complement someone's dressing style as in "Today you are looking very Yankee". This term came into popular use after the ice cream chain - Yankee Doodle.
Re:Wait a minute . . . (Score:1)
I'm not quite sure what your point is, in terms of relevance to the issue at hand...
Re:bitter apple (Score:2)
SAVE THE COMPANY FROM DEATH.
When Steve returned, Apple was 3 weeks away from Chapter 11 (nobody knew how bad things really were). He rescued the company from certain death. Sometimes when you do CPR, you break a few ribs. Better to be alive and have a few broken ribs, no?
Worse than Microsoft... (Score:1)
Advertising and Independence (Score:1)
I see this problem all over the product journalism field, whether it be computers, cars, stereo gear, or movie reviewing quote whores. Big advertisers have power to influence content, and it's hard to put together a publication without their sponsorship. The solution is that we consumers have to demand independence.
I've said it before... (Score:5)
And i'll say it again. Apple's historical behavior is far worse than Microsoft ever dreamed of being. The only reason no one cares about Apple's shinanigans is that they have been so incompetent at become a monopoly.
Can you imagine the uproar if Microsoft used their advertising dollars to try and influence editorial content?
I detest Apple-the-company, but ironically I'm excited about Apple's products for the first time since, well, 1984 (the release of the Mac). The Open Source community really, really needs to take what is good about OS/X (such as the XML-based configurations, perhaps the rendering system) and get the good ideas. Otherwise I may be tempted to someday get a Unix-based Mac. I really want a Unix-based desktop system that has a reasonable set of business applications, but not at that price (figuratively and literally).
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Business angle (Score:2)
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
Sounds a lot like Sunhelp.org (Score:1)
Oddly, I contributed that story, but no one ever mentioned it on Slashdot.
Re:The traffic they are advertising towards is fro (Score:1)
Without rumors, Apple still does have some news to report...such as the news that all corporations like to report:
The corporations commitment to shaping the future.
The corporations commitment to building partnerships.
The corporations commitment to building a strong workforce that includes women and minorities.
The corporations commitment to forging alliances between the public and private sector to shape the future.
The corporations commitment to protecting the environment while returning their investors investment.
The corporations commitment to spending the money they aren't using to build a strong workforce or protecting the environment to pay PR firms to churn out glossy bullshit that they must have started reading themselves if they think they can get people to pay attention to it instead of actual, substantial news from independent sources.
Sad, but not surprising (Score:1)
There's a long tradition of advertisers trying to influence the editorial side of publications, so this is nothing new. I just hope that the publications in question resist the pressure and that Apple (assuming that TBWA/Chiat/Day's [chiatday.com] threat is at their behest) back off of this immediately. I can understand Apple seeking to enforce NDAs, but not their intruding on the freedom of the press.
--meredith
Re:tisk tisk, steve has quite the temper (Score:1)
so it'll be an puter running an *intel* chip with a *microsoft* os?
way to take the moral highground there
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But but but...! (Score:2)
I'll start a rumor: The people behind this consort with fly larvae! (Sorry if I cost
Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
Re:#1 rule of journalism. (Score:1)
Now all you can read are praising reviews of so-so products (if they're big advertisers) or so-so reviews of really crappy products (if they're big advertisers) or scathing reviews from so-so products (if they're not advertisers).
Now you have to resort to other sources to get a less biased, and informative view. (Anandtech, Tomshardware, are web examples)
The bigger the media is, the worse it gets. What's really scary is who actually owns the large TV-stations... and watching politics dictate what is 'deemed' important enough to show on the news.
Rader
Control freak (Score:1)
Jobs is a known control freak, but it's time for him to realize that his control over real world is limited. The sooner he understands this, the better it will be for everybody.
Kaa
Re:bitter apple (Score:1)
The cube is great. Silent, powerful linuxppc machine.
iMac almost certainly saved Apple.
Newton was good, but would never have been a commercial success at the price they asked.
Sell out Apple to Microsoft? Hardly. Secure the future of development of the world's most popular application software while gaining needed investment $$$.
And you didn't mention, but I will - the new keyboard shipping with the G4s is one of the best I have ever used, and is just as happy on a PC editing visual studio as it is under MacOS or linuxppc.
I could go on... arguments involving Macs are never worthwhile.
Re:So (Score:1)
Perhaps I misunderstood. I took "publications" to mean ANY media outlet that printed rumors, such as MacWeek (does that magazine still exist?), etc. So if John C. Dvorak prints an Apple rumor in his "Inside Track" column in PC Magazine (what a terrible magazine that is, but that's a whole different issue), Apple would then refuse to run ads in PC Magazine (yup, I have occasionally seen Apple ads in that rag).
Re:Macs... (Score:2)
out of date postings I've
ever seen on
Apple has been making money
since 1998. There were several
quarters where they lost
a lot of money... but that
was stopped 2 YEARS ago. For
2 YEARS they have been consistantly
making a proft _and_ that profit
has been increasing.
If you are going to take pot shot at
a company at least get your facts straight.
---
RobK
Re:Bad Karma? (Score:1)
Apple really bites nowadays (Score:1)
Bad Karma? (Score:5)
Apple isn't threatening to sue; Apple isn't threatening to abuse the courts to kill 'the little guy'. Apple is saying 'We don't agree with your putting up rumors, so we've decided that unless you stop doing it, we cannot advertise with you anymore'. This is called VOTING WITH YOUR MONEY.
Why should apple advertise with someone who is doing something they don't agree with? For the same reason you should buy music from a band you don't agree with?
Re:#1 rule of journalism. (Score:2)
For instance, many major magazines that are supposedly run the way you describe flat-out refuse to put AdBuster's Parody ads in, even though AdBuster's will pay FULL price, because they don't want to piss off their 'big' advertisers.
And man, that's capitalism at it's best.
Re:Um, Apple, They're some of your BEST advertisin (Score:3)
It's not the fans that Steve Jobs doesn't want to know what Apple is doing. It's the competitors who, if they would find out what Apple is planning, would announce that you should what 3 more years because MS^H^H, er the competition, is going to be releasing the exact same thing, but better.
I'm sure that if Steve Jobs had a way of letting the fans know about developments without the "competitors" being able to make claims that would cause non-fans to not buy Apples products, he'd do that. But I think for know, if you really want Apple to be successful for you, you need to support Apple and work with them.
-BrentRe:bitter apple (Score:2)
Ahem....you forgot....
Axe the only UK AppleExpo in favour of *another* US show.
Axe all international OS variations in favour of one (US) version.
Start using the consumer to beta test it's hardware ~ anyone got a Cube? What a peice of shit! Out of the ten I got, 2 were DOA (one had a dead DVD drive, the other had the sleep/restart/shut down problem [macfixit.com]) another two have got a VGA problem where the only resolution you can select is 640x480! Nice!
What gives Jobs? I forsee the Cube as being one of Apple's biggest farces yet.....watch this space!
--------------------------------------------
Bring back Woz (Score:2)
Re:Bad Karma? (Score:2)
Nonsense. I do not know your political views, so I cannot give a more concrete example, but do you buy products from companies which support causes you disagree with? It's not evil to refrain from support someone with whom one disagrees; it's intelligent. It's called taking one's business elsewhere, much as we do with Linux. It may not be the greatest desktop OS, but It's Not Windows.
Voting with one's dollars is an intelligent and a useful thing. Why should a company be forced to support a competitor (in this case, a competitor in the surprising-news market)? Apple have no duty to support any web site at all.
What news is (Score:2)
No paid-subscription magazine should go for this. Cancel your subcription to any magazine that does. They're not a magazine any more; they're an advertising mailer.
Think Apple won't win? (Score:2)
This is a case that Apple couldn't win
But you're forgetting the Second Golden Rule. Just so you remember:
- Act toward others as you'd have them act toward you.
- He who has the gold makes the rules.
Technology lawsuits are not won by right but by might. Whoever can buy the best champion (lawyers) will almost invariably win.<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:Freedom of speech? (Score:4)
If the Site values editorial content over the money Apple pays it for ads, then they won't buckle. If they DO need apple that badly as a client, then they'll buckle (and so they should if their livleyhood depends on apple)
Re:They do have a point, but their methods blow (Score:2)
Of course, where Apple spends it's advertising money is completely up to apple.
Ethics, advertising and news (Score:2)
1. We lost a little advertising, a small dent in the tens of thousands that came in from elsewhere.
2. The editors promptly knew that we were onto a real story, for once, and pursued it further.
3. AMC have the rest of my life to put up with me telling this story when it becomes relevant.
4. It polarized the entire newspaper, having the exact opposite effect they sought, which was a threat to silence us.
5. Shooting themselves in the foot, AMC lost what they were seeking when they sought our audience for advertisement in the first place.
Pondering what they were doing, I knew that in order for this conflict of interest/ethical breach to come at us from AMC, the whole company had to be pretty entrenched in it. Things like this are not the whims of a single Napoleonic complex--they are cultivated over time in a corporate "We're the most powerful thing on earth" environment. Fortunately, newspapers don't have that luxury, and take the brunt of this kind of pressure: Newspapers rely on reputation and credibility more than any corporation, and know it. Money is secondary to a decent editor, principles being first. Media cannot buckle to conflicts of interest which might seem commonplace to their advertisers, or they will dwindle into fluffy bundles of advertising. The better writers will move elsewhere, because they gots egos as big as China. I am sure AMC applied the same pressure to other advertising outlets, like the big city newspaper. Happens all the time, but the best newspapers (or websites) laugh at it. -Water Paradox
Entirely within their rights (Score:2)
Re:Control freak (Score:2)
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Re:I've said it before... (Score:2)
#1 rule of journalism. (Score:2)
You can't promise to do a full page story on Mom's diner if they promise to buy an ad every week for the next month. It just can't work that way.
Hopefully these publications do business the same way.
________
Re:I've said it before... (Score:2)
next had a nichelette (Score:2)
hawk
Re:bitter apple (Score:2)
For the same reason that "the sky is green" doesn't go over well . . .
>- no CL...nothing underneath. If you wanted to 'troubleshoot' it was a
> matter of restarting and fiddling with intis
wrong on both counts. If you wanted such trouble shooting, there were debuggers with *gasp* CLI's. Playing with inits and rebooting was only to deal with *surprise* problems with inits..
> -The GUI was all. Nuthin' more, nuthin less.
try saying "hypercard". It did things that *still* aren't available on other platforms. The closest I can come to doing some of the useful things I used to do require lisp or a derivative, and still lack the ability to trivially modify the interface (lisp doesn't do it as well; it's just the only way I"ve found that's possible).
but then again, why am I bothering to respond to pure ignorance???
hawk
But what it does (Score:2)
Wait a minute . . . (Score:2)
A Salon citation to back something as "well known" for some reason makes me recall Pravda bits that began with, "it is will known that . .
I'd acknowledge that Salon is a half a step above the National Enquirer, but I wouldn't want to have to defend that position . . .
[It's editors response to something along the lines of, "your sole source was someone you know to be a pathological liar and has already admitted lying about this" was approximately, "it's ok because republicans are evil."
Guys, this is SOP (Score:2)
Why does 'prime time' exist, and why is it harder/racier than afternoon/morning shows?
Why are 'soaps' so hard?
Because advertisers say so. They say to a network, "this is who I think is watching at this time, and so I am willing to pay X to advertise", or "I do not want my product associated with Y, as I think these other people are watching, who wouldn't approve"
This doesn't make Apple evil (there are other things that make Apple evil
It's just bad PR on Apple's part, and probably wouldn't have happened if the Evangelist was still arround. (You know, the Apple run list that spread Apple rumors) Even so, it only annoys people who read apple rumor sites, who are apparently not a large enough part of the market for Apple to care about.
Translation: Now that they are popular, they're ditching their geeky date to the prom, to go with the football player.
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
Slashdot posting flowchart (Score:2)
- Quickly hit "reply"
- "First Post" OR "Hot Grits" OR "Natalie Portman"
- Read article
- Reword article, post revisions
- Watch karma roll in
- Wait until 15 posts are at +2 or more
- "Did anyone actually read the article?"
- Reword article, post revisions
- Hit reply
- "I'm probably going to get moderated down for this..."
- Reword article, post revisions
Re:Bad Karma? (Score:2)
Why should apple advertise with someone who is doing something they don't agree with?
So Ford should stop advertising in Time because they are making Ford look bad?
Yes, they have a perfect right to put their advertising dollars where they see fit. But don't kid yourself that it's not "evil" to use advertising dollars to influence editorial content.
--
Computers and Geeks (Score:2)
Apple is shooting itself in the foot by not allowing rumors to spread... everybody knows to take these things with a grain of salt, but they still allow you to get excited about the product.
Doug
The traffic they are advertising towards is from? (Score:2)
I guess it's clear then, keep publishing rumors. It is a classic loose loose situation. You loose the rumors and you loose apple as an advertiser evenually as your traffic dissapears. You keep publishing rumors and you loose apple as an advertiser right away.
Now what about editorial content. Will apple stop advertising in newspapers or magazines because they publish bad reviews of an apple product? How far could this go?
Apple PR Flowchart (Score:5)
They should be happy to get the fsking publicity.
-Omar
Editorial and Advertising are commonly linked (Score:2)
This practice is certainly not followed universally.
It is standard practice for small newspapers to sell advertising packages that include guaranteed editorial coverage.
Larger publications also bend this rule a little bit; it's called custom publishing. If an advertiser wants a special issue of a magazine produced, the can enter an arrangement with the publisher where they supply all of the advertising content and the editorial content is tailored to their needs. Publications who care about advertising influence end up being really careful in this situation to ensure that there is a divide between the editorial and advertising staffs.
In the network television work, the barriers between the editorial and business sides are flagrantly broken. Look at the CBS News coverage of survivor or ABC News coverage of Disney properties.
In an editorial [zdnet.com], MacWeek discussed their reasoning in dropping Mac the Knife, MacWeek's rumor column. While the column listed several reasons for dropping the column, I believe that Mac the Knife's on advertising certainly had an affect.
Some magazines, such as Ms. and Consumer Reporter, will not accept advertising so that there is never a link between editorial content and advertising.
Finally, even where there is an explicit rule against advertising affecting the editorial side, the fact is that for most publications, if the editorial content angers the advertisers too much the editorial staff will be changed. In addition, advertising generally pays the editorial staff's salaries. The editorial staff knows this.
Clarification of the issue (Score:4)
Plenty.
You have to realize that Apple market is much different than than of Dell's or VA's. The surprise factor is a significant catalyst. Do you think the iMac would have still would have received front page headlines if details and/or screenshots of it had leaked out three weeks prior to it's introduction? What about the announcement of the Microsoft investment?
Additionally, as several other people have pointed out, there's the "wait and see" problem. If user a is about to buy a powerbook, but sees that new models are coming out in three months, he may wait. Of course, the new models may actually come out in six months. The rumor sites don't really know. But in the meantime, Apple has lost sales.
It's not like most of the rumor sites are "information for the people" champions. Many of them are for-profit businesses.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Let's review (Score:2)
No, that's what the media events are for.
Steve Jobs is a control freak who while being good at getting people focused and directed, has proven time and again to be bad for the long term interests of the company.
You're kidding, right? Apple has pretty much only done well (mindshare, interest, profits, innovative products) while Jobs has been in charge. Had Jobs not been there, Jonathan Ives (head of industrial design) probably would have left, and Apple would still be chasing an OS strategy that would force all developers to rewrite their software from scratch.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
They do have a point, but their methods blow (Score:3)
I'm not condoning Apple's actions over this, they've been heavy-handed and way too zealous in what basically amounts to a "getting your own back" campaign against sites whose job is to report this kind of stuff.
But still, you can see where they're coming from in wanting to keep information to themselves. There have been several cases in computing history where plans have changed, and a vast circulation of rumours means that the company can end up looking bad for not having done something they'd never wanted to announce.
And when you get rumours flying around, as the net is so good for doing, it becomes next to impossible to separate the true ones from the false ones, and again this can make the company look bad, especially if the rumours are malicious. These rumours are a great way of influencing things like stock prices, and the net has already shown us that a mere rumour spread online can cause stocks to plummit or climb. What company is really going to want to the at the whim of that?
But still, Apple really needs to stop being so vindictive about this. All they're doing is making themselves look like tyrants, a problem they've had in the past. If they relaxed a little, I'm sure things wouldn't be so bad - every time Apple blows up, it draws attention to the rumours...
Um, Apple, They're some of your BEST advertising! (Score:5)
I am not the Apple fan that I once was, but a few years ago, when everyone was still saying "Won't be long now before Apple dies," I was hearing other tunes from.... the rumors sites. They're some of the biggest supporters. They print the good news that everyone wants to beleive. They provide hints of things to come, soon, enticing fans to imagine and beleive in and most of all _eagerly anticipate_ them. Pop stars and politicians could take publicity lessons from the Apple Rumor Press.
And the rest of the people, who Steve Jobs wants to "Wow" and "Surprise"? The untamed masses who are just getting a computer? They don't read the sites, Steve. Your secrets are safe. The fans visit the rumor mills; most people don't. The fans will check your cool stuff anyway. The average consumer will be intruiged with your suprises. It's OK. Leave the rumor sites alone. Heck, use them like politicians use the press... leak info selectively. But don't sue them. Good grief.