Yesterday’s Apple stock dip quelled any belief that the blogosphere can influence markets. The blogosphere is a market of influencers of varying degrees of influence. The number one influencer/number one blog is Engadget (according to current Technorati popularity statistics).
What happened yesterday is Engadget received an internal Apple email that said the iPhone’s release would be delayed from June until October, and the Leopard operating system would be pushed off to January next year. Engadget has realized that his was a hoax and has printed a correction.
If there was any question to the influence of rumors on the blogosphere, this event quelled it. And it also showed the complete disconnect between the goals of money making blogs like Engadget and the rules of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). A few other issues this Apple-Engadget debacle raises:
- The skewed audience demographic towards Apple enthusiasts. Blogosphere influencers and participants are not reflective of the PC to Mac demographics of computer users.
- High end blogs have a primary goal: be the first to release highly sought after information and stay credible. The traditional confirmation and correction process that most journalists go through does not apply to bloggers. That’s because time delays translate into lost traffic which translates into lost revenue. No other media institution rides under this kind of pressure. As a result, it is more important to publish hot information first, and then correct it later. This is exactly what Engadget did and continues to do. Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, a blog network that publishes Engadget’s top competitor, Gizmodo, admitted to Wired magazine years ago that speed of information is more important than accuracy. But both Engadget and Gizmodo both realize that’s a delicate line to ride. Too many false stories and they lose their credibility, which is their value. So far they’ve been riding it well.
- The problem is the rest of the public doesn’t understand the difference between information that comes out of Engadget and information that comes out of the NYTimes Circuits section. Shocking news in either direction causes them to react. So much so that they can move markets. But right now, Engadget is in a better position to move markets in the short term than the NY Times. Will they be beholden to SEC scrutiny?
