I just heard an interview with Robert Scoble on KUOW (Seattle’s NPR station). I’ve been reading Scoble’s blog for a long time, and I have agreed with most of the things he’s said over the years about the importance of blogging for companies in a world where word-of-mouth can spread a story around the world in minutes. Specifically, I agree that transparency and the “naked conversations” (as the title of Scoble’s book puts it) are beneficial to both the customers of a company like Microsoft but also to the company itself – they recieve feedback and can keep bad spin from igniting the blogosphere (ugh, I can’t believe I just used that word) like a brush fire.
However, I have a big question for Scoble and the other corporate blogging proponents. What about Apple? Apple doesn’t blog at all as far as I know – even Dave Hyatt’s old Safari blog is long gone. Yet people hang on their every word, every product announcement. Even the completely uninteresting launch of the new Intel Mac mini and iPod Hi-Fi was talked about all over the place – I got sick of tabbing through people repeating the story in my RSS reader. Engadget and some other tech blogs had a posts for weeks before the keynote buzzing about the magical products that might be released. You couldn’t hope for better PR. And even after the disappointing keynote, people still had positive things to say, despite some worrying problems with the new Mac mini (I admit, I was stoked to buy an Intel Mac mini when they came out, but I think I’ll reconsider for the time being).
When I interviewed at Apple I asked them why they didn’t blog, why there wasn’t more transparency. They responded that secrecy and surprise are one of Apple’s biggest assets, which I completely understand. But I don’t see Apple employees blogging about Carbon, or Automator, or any of the cool things that people aready know about, the same way I see Microsoft employees blogging about .NET or Microsoft Gadgets. What I’d love to have explained to me is how a company can survive, or rather, be loved so thouroughly, completely, and perhaps irrationally, without the level of transparency Scoble prescribes. Is it that blogging doesn’t really help the way we hope it does, or that it only helps for new companies and companies that already start out reviled by much of the community such as Microsoft?
Update (3/29/06): Scoble and Shel Israel came and gave an enjoyable talk today, and I got to ask them a version of the question I had posted above. I wish I could have talked with them further, but they basically said that while Apple is a PR powerhouse now, their lack of transparency will bite them in the long run. I tend to agree with that, but I think right now blogging is significantly more necessary for companies that don’t have flawless PR or fanatical customers.
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Three audiences, three different cultures
You might think that the trick to good speaking is speaking well. Being confident. Having interesting content. And all that.
Now that I’ve given a bunch of speeches (four in the past two days), I’m learning that the real skill a speaker needs is l…
What about Apple?
First point, the bloggers don’t rule the world. Gossip is a powerful weapon, but the gun backfires consistantly, and every now and again it implodes on itself.
First point reprise, it may not be common for the majority of the people to choose something truly evil, but it is also not common for the popular things to be truly outstanding.
First point redacted, information is covering the world like a flood in these (last) days, but not all that information is useful.
So, what about Apple? “If you can’t please everyone, well, you got to please yourself.” (Who am I quoting?) There’s an inherent sense of both attraction and revulsion in observing something that moves independently of the surrounding context. The three questions are these: How long can the cool independent guy continue to act independently without getting embarrassed at himself and the gaze of the crowd? Or without passing the hat?
Those are the three questions, and when they are answered, Apple will have to blog or die, we would suppose. Or Steve J could quietly succeed in taking over the world where Bill G only got a lot of money.
Money sure is useless stuff after you get so much of it.
Dave Hyatt blogs here:
http://webkit.opendarwin.org/blog/
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo