After MacWhispers whos next....

[Kwyjibo]

After taking a course in Microeconomics I began relating the industry of Mac Rumors to a perfect competition situation. In perfect competition if too many people enter a market the price or a product is driven down and some sellers are driven out of the market. Todays casuality of MacWhispers was a great example, they simple could not compete with reputiable sites. It makes me wonder whos next, so I opened my Rumor Mill folder and noticed the following blurb on LoopRumors

http://www.looprumors.com

"As we mourn the loss of a colleague, MacWhispers, we see why it's dangerous to pinpoint a day in the world of rumors and speculation. We try to be as accurate as possible when delivering the information we know and sometimes that means being vague to sacrifice being viewed as unreliable. Yesterday we reported that Forbes expects iPods to be released on a Tuesday, today, we haven't seen anything. Does this mean another week? A month? Who can say for sure. We will try our best to give you the most up-to-the-minute information as we receive it. They're coming, we just don't want to commit to a date and risk the chance of being seen as unreliable."

Is it just me or is that crap? why make a report if you don't have news? Arn did it quite tastefully in citing their clsoing ntoice but they seem to say yeah MacWhispers is gone but we don't have good news either so were gonna be as vague as possilbe until we finally hit gold. I'm starting to think they are "cold reading" the market and other rumor sites John Edwards Style. I noticed how they structure their news on being vague, I can't wait to see how that works out. Why make a whole story about what you don't know and aren't guessing about i'm not sure. The paragraph about that is also a vague iPod story. IMO even tho MAcWhispers was wrong atleast they had the balls to take a few risks. I"m not trying to be pretentious but I think at the very least this has to show us how good arn is and how much time he spends making sure his news is top notch. Thanks Arn

 

[timbloom]

Re: After MacWhispers whos next....

I personally think that, yes, Apple's suppliers, lower-level employees, and other sources around Apple are not the best way to get information for speculation.

Most of them are fed information that is just a rumor where they are, many of which are started off of some distant truth. Those are usually rumors about an in-development product. But Apple undoubtedly never releases 75% of products they play with in their r&d department. So saying Apple is working on something means just this: there is 25% chance we will see it someday.

About product updates and announcements: Following trends is the best way to predict something will be updated... if an item still has the "new" icon on it at the apple store, you can assume that it will not be updated soon. If a product is EOL at major retail chains or distributors, you can expect it to be either replaced or discontinued. If it has been more than 6 months since a major pro or consumer product has been updated, (exclude education) you can hope for an update.

Basically this is all really just common sense if you have been buying Apple stuff as long as I have.

Nothing is ever set in stone though.... Usually the execs at Apple don't know when a small product update will happen till the market hits an ideal time to update it, and when the product is ready.

Just what I have learned