Power Of The Blog: Engadget Causes Apple Stock To Drop 2.2%
It’s amazing how powerful and how widely read some of the uberblogs have become. Yesterday, Engadget posted a story based on an email from an ‘apple source’ claiming that Apple was about to announce another delay of Leopard External Link, the next version of Mac OS X, as well as a delay for the iPhone External Link, perhaps the most hyped gadget of all time.
Once Engadget published this story Apple’s stock fell 2.2% in just 6 minutes, knocking $4Bn off Apple’s Market Cap. It turned that despite the email being sent by Apple’s email system, the email turned out to be a hoax.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Apple find out who was the source of the email, if they haven’t already. I’m pretty confident that if it was an employee they will get fired on the spot. We had a similar incident a few years ago at my firm when an employee leaked new pricing plans, which sent normally well-behaved directors crazy as they stalked the office trying to find someone to throw out of a top floor window.
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Comment by Brown Baron on 17 May 2007:
When I heard about it my first thought was “damn, now that’s a powerful blog”. It’s amazing I agree.
Comment by Neo on 17 May 2007:
Isn’t it always the mainstream that is the last to realize how powerful websites can be. I remember when Youtube first came out, many techies could see its potential right away. But the big companies usually do the wait and see… by the time they realize how big it is, they are so far behind.
Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 17 May 2007:
Wow, that’s truly amazing.
I think we’re only seeing the beginning of the impact blogs are going to have.
People are connecting so much more with blogs for a lot of different reasons, but in large part I think it’s because there’s so much more transparency (or perceived transparency) than traditional media. After all, you’re usually dealing with real people, not a “corporation”.
There’s also the voyeuristic angle of people just wanting to know what others are up to, etc., and of course our world being more and more interconnected, people are wanting more close contact with others, and the online presences SEEM to help with that (though I’m not sure they really do). But I think this has been extremely instrumental in the growth of social media these past few years.
Have an awesome day!
Dan
Comment by Everton on 17 May 2007:
Maybe, but it also shows up why blogs in many ways will not match traditional media. How many newspapers would have published this story without verifying the story first? Also, most blogs tend to write stories based on secondary evidence.
Blogs are great for getting news out quickly, but being quick sometimes can cause problems.
Comment by Robert Irizarry on 19 May 2007:
Wow! So much for blogs just being a temporary blip. If that doesn’t start to convince the conventional media out there, I’m not sure what will.
Comment by Mark from Bloglyne.com on 19 May 2007:
This article is an interesting comment on the state of blogs, but also brings up the question of whether or not authors should verify facts for the stories they publish… The temptation to “scoop” everybody else can be extremely overpowering, but, “with great power, comes great responsibility.” -Uncle Ben (Spiderman)
I comment on this in my article about GoDaddy at http://www.bloglyne.com/2007/03/03/godaddy-response-to-domain-deletion/
I almost took an article at “face value” without doing the work to verify, and if I had - this article would have been much different. I am glad I took the time to verify what I thought were the relevant facts to the article rather than just publishing something that was rumor.
Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 19 May 2007:
Great point Everton, you’re definitely right.
But the fact is traditional media is noticing the power and influence that so many blogs wield. Programs like BlogBurst and the Washington Post Blogroll are just the beginning of what I believe will be a major shift in media as we know it today.
Traditional media will likely embrace blogs on a much larger scale, while drawing a firm deliniation between “x media corp” content and “our friendly blogger guy” content. But it’ll be side by side more and more.
Let’s remember that media is a business, and making nice with influencial bloggers who have a strong following and produce strong content is a business win/win - when done right of course.
USA Today is now syndicating BlogBurst blogs on their homepage and throughout the site. They’ll soon be viewed as a forward thinking pioneer as their slower friends catch up.
Have an awesome day!
Dan
Comment by Budi S on 22 May 2007:
Blogs are great …
But because blogs is had by personal
So we must make sure the news is right …
Pingback by The Blog Is Mightier Than The Sword — Webmaster Dome v1.8 on 30 June 2007:
[...] alter this little proverb, “The Blog is mightier than the sword”. Why ? Read on about how Apple’s stock fell by 2.2% because of a blog post [...]