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Apple's Ad Agency Goes After Mac Rumour Sites
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"?
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.
all publications should stop talking about Apple period. No more regurgitation of self-serving press-releases as news, no more bullshit corporate spin as commentary, no more free advertising in the form of product reviews
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
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Well with all the stuff going on with Rambus, I think this is just Apple taking steps to make sure they retain the title of Most Litigation-Happy Company Ever.
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
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
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?
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I infer that you have never seen PC Magazine. 1995 award for Technical Excellence: Windows 95.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In the strive to get the latest news first, sometimes printing rumors helps... as long as they are labeled as such. What Apple is trying to do is control the news so they always are the ones with all the latest info (which negates the whole purpose of other Mac news site). I think this has alot to do with the pre-realease cube pictures, Jobs wanted the spot light all for himself. He couldn't stand sharing it even though the light was shining brighter.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
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 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 examples of so-called respectable publishers selling themselves to the highest bidder.
It just doesn't make any sense, like a 6 foot wookie living on Endor.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
i'm a die-hard apple fan, or at least i was. i go back to a 128 in 1984 and a //e in 1980. but i'll say this, apple sure is alienating their fans these days. jobs may have been good for pulling apple out of a rut, but he doesn't seem to have the ability to manage things as they flow along.
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.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Um, i recieved an email, while on the Apple Mailing List about the iMac about 2 months before it came out.
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
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
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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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
That's not bad karma. Bad karma is when you get moderated up despite a Goatse.cx link.
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...
Yeah. THe that is THEIR RIGHT. Nobody can force them to advertise with the magazine.
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.
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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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Maybe Jobs has realized where the real money is at: rumors. Think about it, MacOS Rumors, Slashdot, ZDNet--all non-fact-based journalism sites, all with high-traffic. Just like they killed off the clone makers a few years ago, they are killing off the rumor-clone makers now. Then they'll launch the iRumor.
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Rumors are the lifeblood of consumer originated hype! Leaks or not, they draw interest in the product. Waiting for Lord Steve to bless us with the Royal version of things takes too long.
/. a couple ad bux)
I'll start a rumor: The people behind this consort with fly larvae! (Sorry if I cost
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wow, that is one of the most /.
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
Myddrin
Folks,we might think it's silly.. but this is not 'evil'.
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?
However, telling a publication not to print certain materials is much more common. Especially if those materials related to you.
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.
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.
-Brentjust a thought
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
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.
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!
Will I retire or break 10K?
For the same reason Apple is not 'forced' to pay these people to put up advertising.
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)
However, people have a natural right to 'discuss' things that 'might' happen. If I think apple is going to do somethign neat, I can talk about it all I like, and Apple shouldn't have a problem with it.
Of course, where Apple spends it's advertising money is completely up to apple.
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
information is immaterial
Recently, there was an attempt to rip me a new one here when I implied it was a good thing AIM may be forced to open up. The argument was that it was a proprietary database, so why should others be granted access blablabla.. Isn't this somewhat similar? Shouldn't Apple be able to defend proprietary information and prevent it from being released until they chose? Isn't that their RIGHT? The premature release of this data takes the edge off their advertising campaigns and "hurts" their market strategy. I know there is a difference between a database, that could be considered an asset, and rumors/leaked advertising data, but they both have a dollar value that can be attached. Let the flame begin.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Umm Apple isn't threatening them with some sort of legal violation, they're simply going to yank the advertising dollars out from under the site's feet. If Apple doesn't agree with sites posting rumors, they're well within their rights to yank their support of these sites. No first amendmen violation whatsoever. This is not to say that I agree with these types of tactics, I'm just saying it's not a first amendment issue, it's a money issue.
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Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
- Dave
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.
________
The problem was, it was "developers writing programs to run on next". Unfortunately, much like web banners that merely advertise other sites of banners, they could only sell to other next developers, because noone else bought them . . .
hawk
is to insure that apple will not get advertising in the serious press, but only the rah-rah rags. *That's* why it's a bad move for apple.
We're talking about journalism, and you're quoting Salon???
." before something such as the soviet invention of the automobile, or that the U.S. bombs canadian babies, or . . .
:)
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."
Honestly.
...), just stupid. 'Normal' consumers don't read rumor sites, and don't care if they are inacurate, and so rumor inacuraces do not affect Apple's sales. 'Early Adopters' (read: Screaming Tech Monkeys) do read rumor sites, but do so with large amounts of salt, and know that their will be inaccuracies.
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>
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
- See new article
- 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
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
I'm sorry, but half the fun of being a geek is getting to speculate about what the next best thing is going to be...
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
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
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?
They should be happy to get the fsking publicity.
-Omar
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, 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.
--Sam
What's the harm of someone getting excited over a rumored product-to-be?
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
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Rumour sites are what get the hype going, people salivating, and the media interested and pumped.
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
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
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...
Bad Karma, and a big mistake. The rumors sites are some of Apple's best advertising.
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.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.