When I was looking at AW Stats this morning, I noticed that my little editorial about Apple’s announcements (below) had gotten quite a bit of exposure overnight. Clicking around to see what others had to say, I found myself feeling some regret for what I had written.
Not because of what I’d said, more for the ‘loudness’ of the delivery.
A Question of Amplification
One commenter was upset that the article was even mentioned on Digg because it was just my ’superficial ruminations’. I really liked that. The guy was basically correct…what I write here are my ruminations*. In fact, that is the entire point of Writers Block Live. This book will be a mixture of my experiences, observations and thoughts about the events I lived through and my ruminations on the same.
But what I didn’t like is how seriously some people took what I said. I dashed off the article to share my initial reactions to the events of the day. I don’t attach any great significance to them, nor should anyone else. I suppose it’s the nature of the web; some things resonate with readers, and as a consequence are amplified immensely as they share it with others. The challenging part is that it’s impossible to predict which articles will have a loud ‘echo’ and which items will simple sit there. In spite of all that, I absolutely love it when I write something that provokes lively discussion; it’s one of the greatest rewards of writing.
OK. Get to the Point
In case you haven’t noticed, this article is a rumination; but it’s probably not what you’re thinking so far. I’m writing this as a starting point for one of the key topics of the book: a discussion of how the amount of amplification affects people’s view of what they are hearing. And how the same message, delivered by the same person, takes on different meaning depending on the ’surroundings’.
Here’s an extreme example: when Astarte was beginning to work on DVD authoring tools, I would go around to trade shows and conferences to ’spread the word’. I had two recurring themes: first, our view that DVD creation would be commonplace in a very short time. I speculated that many applications would eventually have a menu option to make a DVD without the need for any separate tools or processes. Second, I opined that even the tools for creating professional quality DVDs would become much simpler and essentially free; further that the price blank discs would follow the same path as CD-Rs**. Much like desktop publishing, you would not be able to build a sustainable business simply by having the tools to make DVDs, you had to add the creative element. We really believed this, and some in the audience would nod in agreement, but mostly they assumed I was just there promoting the Astarte agenda and didn’t take it too seriously.
Not too long after that, I find myself in the position of being the Apple spokesman for things related to DVD. When I would say essential the same things, but using Apple’s ‘microphone’, people paid much more attention (of course) and would dissect every phrase trying to find the hidden meaning (there wasn’t any, by the way).
Well…duh
I know, it’s totally obvious: Apple has much more influence, so people listen when they speak. That’s not my point. The point is (or will be, once I write it) to try to describe how I had to change what I said and how I said it (and to whom) over the past several years. Along with that, the story of how I went from spending so much time throughout my career trying to get the press to talk to me, so I could tell them about whatever product I was working on at the time, to being at Apple where you basically have to beat the press back with a stick and only speak to them when and if you are ready. Both these changes were difficult, but I look forward to telling you all about them.
*Ruminate – to think deeply about something
** at that time it cost at least $10,000 for software to create DVDs, and blank discs cost about $40.
BTW, you were talked about on rocketboom last night. that would help your stats
I agree with mevdev. People are unrealistic in their expectations. When their not met, they punish. It’s unreasonable.
There are many aspects to Apple’s business. If anything, we’ve been given insight into it, that it’s long-term. There are incremental changes to prevent violent fluctuations for good or bad. Apple of the past was a “young” company: read “immature.” Changing the world is a violent, disruptive act that can destabilize the status quo in bad ways.
My perspective is that Apple at its heart has not changed– changing the world is still at its heart. What has changed is the way the change is implemented. People have a tendency to remember historic moments of the past like the moon landing, forgetting the work that lead to it. Also, there are just as many failures with just as much or more work behind them.
Many need to give Apple a break. They have defied the odds for quite some time now, but they are still a human endeavor, even if we want them to be so much more.
Thanks for the clarification. I think the rumor mills don’t work well anymore. It isn’t like when Copland was being developed when the rumors were mildly true. Now these rumors ruminate more like what the users want, and they know the press coverage for their ‘leaked rumors’ will get more exposure than their ‘whatever the fuck I want from apple’ articles.
I think that is why people are disappointed. They just want too much. The intel ibook rumors have been always ‘oh this time!’ or ‘highly speculated’ and of course it is the rumor that there will be every port under the sun and a tv tuner and whatnot.
I personally think (not a rumor) that apple is trying to cut costs by using the same enclosures for the imac and the mini. They are great designs and not the least bit outdated by todays standards. What with the core duos coming out at the same clock speeds as the G4’s when are we actually going to have a 3Ghz Mac. Seriously!!
I felt exactly the same yesterday and I hadn’t even built up my hopes and dreams to such heady heights. Yet it was still a great let down and you’ve just vocalized what most Apple users collectively felt.
…But as I type this on my iBook 12″ 1.33 I feel happy that I’ve got such a gorgeous, fun and perfect little machine. It does exactly what I want, it offers such perfect, world class features such as Dashboard (couldn’t live without it now!), Expose (loved it from the start), Safari (super slick, like butter!), trackpad scrolling and a thousand other reasons besides.
I say this as I sit here trying to make a new Toshiba laptop I’ve just bought (to test out website’s with MSIE) look and feel a little less clunky. There’s a whole mass of software pre-installed that I want off, there’s settings that are just brain dead that I don’t want. It’s going to be a lot of rebooting, a lot of hunting around and even then I’ll be stuck with the most ugly OS I’ve had the misfortune to use.
Forget Tuesday’s anti-climax, just remember what wonderful machines that Apple have engineered for us over the years.
Adam – I saw that. It generated almost no traffic. Less than 30 click-thrus from the RocketBoom domains (although some visitors may have just typed in the web address, thereby being missed by the logs.) This compares to about 10,000 visits from a Digg mention, and hundreds whenever MacSurfer puts up a link.
Of all the blogs with the message “Apple wrecked my life because they didn’t release a tablet video iPod with nVidia 7800GTX graphics,” I’m actually surprised Mike – with his intimate knowledge of how Apple works – took this line in his, er, ruminations.
If you recall, the Feb 28 event was to be a small number, invitation only press event. It wasn’t a public annoucement. If it wasn’t Apple, no one would even know that 100 or so people had been sent that invitation with the iCal icon on it.
Instead however, because it _was_ Apple, the rumor machine kicked into overdrive and built it up into something I don’t think the company ever intended it to be: a project announcement of major significance.
If you watch the video clips at: news.com you can see it was a very low key event: Jobs spoke much more softly than at a Macworld style keynote, was almost casual in his presentation to the small audience, many of whom he would probably be chatting to on a one to one basis later on.
What I think the event was all about was to woo a few select journalists into taking seriously Apple’s experimental foray into the living room, go home to their newspapers, and hopefully report favorably on a few new fun products. That’s why they set up the den/kitchen/teenager’s bedroom demos for the journalists to wander around.
But the bloggers and rumormongers made it something much more…