Normalkid:Arnold Kim

June was a crazy month for MacRumors.com. WWDC and the iPhone launch drove traffic to record levels. In the end, based on publicly available metrics, it means MacRumors.com was the #1 Apple news or rumor site for June.

According to Compete.com’s statistics we were given a People Rank of 172,485 for the month of June. The larger the number, the more people you are exposed to. Now, the People Rank is really artificial, and it doesn’t correlate at all to our own unique user numbers by a large margin, but it does provide a basis for comparison against other sites on Compete.

Meanwhile, Alexa ranks us at 2,761 — which means we’re the 2,761st most popular site based on their ranking tools.

Both of these rankings beat out all other dedicated Mac news or rumor sites for the month of June.

Before people start commenting about the inaccuracy of these traffic sites — I fully admit there are a number of caveats to these statistics. They only record numbers from their very specific subset of users. Alexa uses a Windows Toolbar, while Compete uses some ISP data (+ toolbar). So, I guess the most accurate statement is that MacRumors was the #1 Apple news or rumor site amongst Alexa and Compete users for June 2007.

A couple of supposed Apple leaks have been distributed over the net over the past week. Rightfully so, each time people question the authenticity of the images that are “leaked”.

In the first instance, some iPod user interface videos were leaked (and later pulled)

In the second, photos of a keyboard purporting to be an unreleased slim iMac keyboard was revealed (and never pulled).

With any supposed image leak, many self-proclaimed experts come out of the woodwork dissecting the images and video with “proof” about why said image is real or fake. For the record, in these instances, the general initial response leaned towards the iPod UI videos being fake (not designed by Apple) and the Keyboard being real (designed by Apple).

This general impression continued despite Apple’s Legal involvement with the iPod UI interface videos, and a notable lack of intervention with the iMac Keyboard photo.

In reading through comments across the web, there were some common claims. I’ve taken samples of these and quoted them here:

1. “Apple were probably the ones that requested this fake news be taken off the website” - GreenAlien

2. “Folks, Apple Legal always gets involved” - tobsterius

3. “…though it should be noted that Apple Legal has previously sought to squelch rumors of products that never materialized. The failed attempt to sue sources from the supposed “Asteroid” breakout box for GarageBand comes to mind.” - Charles Jade/Ars Technica

If you read on, I’ll show that, historically…

1) Apple Legal never gets involved for Images/Video of Fake Products
2) Apple Legal always gets involved for Images/Video Real Products
3) Apple Legal never asked Asteroid information to be pulled

(more…)

MacRumors.com has been around for a while now… over 7 years. And in that time I’d like to think that the site has earned some credibility amongst its regular readers.

We take rumors seriously — well before it was popular to do so — and we certainly don’t make up stories just to draw traffic.

But it’s one thing to say that, but another for readers to really believe it.

Recently, the site had a run in with Apple’s legal team which required us to remove some content from the site. As always, the removal itself generated a big stir/discussion.

Some outside users not familiar with the site even questioned whether or not we might have just made up the legal request. Responses to that accusation (from random passersby) included:

Because [MacRumors.com] doesn’t bullshit on things like that. They’re fairly conservative with their reporting, actually, have a whole section devoted to sketchy rumors, and note skeptically the history of sites when linking. — lookmark

and

MacRumors is a trusted source. They don’t post fake [Cease and Desists]. — MMissive

These comments in particular made me proud of MacRumors.