3 Million uniques for $5000. Not bad.
Posted on October 16, 2010 by admin
In case you live under a rock, a short recap of “the lost iPhone” saga.
6 months ago Gawker Media admitted that it paid ,000 to get their hands on a prototype of a fourth-generation iPhone for its gadget blog, Gizmodo. Seller of the device told the editors of Gizmodo and other technology blogs that he “found” it unattended in a bar.
I’m not trying to debate if buying a lost or stolen phone is legal or not. This is for the big guys. My opinion on the subject is that as long as Gizmodo did not pay to get the phone stolen in the first place, it sounds legitimate to publish the info (although I think it’s wrong). In comparison Techcrunch did post stolen Twitter documents aka Twittergate [documents stolen from Twitter’s servers- not lost, or found. Stolen…and the thief is actually behind bars in France for hacking.] and I was shocked. Maybe my expectations for TechCrunch ethics are higher than for Gizmodo.
There was a before April 2010 and an after. Gizmodo was the underdog gadget blog, TechCrunch the REAL valley mag (no reference to Valleywag – a Gawker zine) and Mashable the gossip tech people magazine.
What happened next? Gizmodo boomed with 4M unique (up to 5M in April, more than TechCrunch and Mashable altogether).
Gizmodo got more publicity for this stunt then any PR could dream of.
Mainstream media started leaking the info on national networks and traffic picked up almost instantly.
Oddly they didn’t ‘take’ any customers readers from their competitors; on the contrary they brought nearly 3 Million fresh souls into the game.
Was it worth it? Hell yeah. And for everyone! Do I approve? No, but I’ve proven wrong many times.
Now that 6 months have passed I see no downside for Gizmodo.
Apple screwed this one up pretty badly. Losing a prototype in a bar was epic. Denying and covering up the mess was like pouring oil on fire. Finally sending the Feds after Gizmodo made Jason Chen look like Robin Hood and Steve Jobs an arrogant little rich kid going after his lost toy. Last but not least, Gizmodo is banned to any Apple event. No biggie there.
Don’t they have teams full of damage control experts in Cupertino? PR moguls?
Apple is a marketing raw model for tens of thousands of entrepreneurs. Where did it go wrong? Why such a drama?
A simple “Yes this is one prototype of a phone we might or might not decide to launch. It’s just that – a prototype. We would appreciate a prompt return of the device in our lab.” would have sufficed to kill the story.
Was the all thing staged to get more publicity?
Obviously a phone was lost and Apple’s execs were all over the case. But Jobs is smart enough to make the best of any given situation- so yes, it’s possible that they played it all along to get more coverage for the launch of the iPhone 4.
Arrington said he would have not paid for the phone. Not so sure he’d say that again today.
TechCrunch is by far my favorite source of information. I can’t read Gizmodo – too inquireresq– and Mashable is full of buttons and boxes which makes the content completely unattractive.
I’m glad Mike sold TechCrunch to AOL. Hope they make good use of his baby.
So, do you think it’s legit to pay for exclusivity?
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