History Moment: Apple/Jobs Blows It Big Time

filed under Crossover

Well, in light of my chatty nature lately, I thought I would share my thoughts on Apple’s announcement, or lack thereof, today. If you haven’t heard the coverage, you an certainly tune in to Engadget to find out more.

I’ll summarize it here though:

Mac Mini with Intel Chips
Leather Case for iPod
iPod Hi-Fi

I’m not casting any judgments on the quality of any of these things, however, considering that they spent so much time preparing people for this and letting buzz fester for quite some more time, this is definitely not the way to play this out. Check the comments above, you need to get to page 6 or 7 to pass all the people commenting in anticipating - yup 250 comments before it started. Then you’ll see the definitive drop in the tone as, well, pretty much everyone begins throwing tomatoes.

I think there’s two anecdotes here. First, PR is a wonderful and destructive thing - something to be handled with care. Second, when you make an announcement, make sure it means something to the audience you’re reaching, not just you - make it count. We’ve got so many little startups whipping out these days, everyone is announcing something - but there isn’t a similar level of execution. Keep them level.