Normalkid:Arnold Kim

Last year, I wrote an article about how Digitime’s accuracy with relation to Apple-related rumors had been very poor. It based on their historic results at the time. Things have changed considerably, however, and I try to give credit where credit is due.

Over the past year, Digitime’s accuracy has been remarkably good with respect to Apple related rumors, and I now pay close attention to their reports. All the following reports turned out to be true:

Leopard Delayed
LED Apple Notebooks
Wifi/Flash iPod
13.3″ Screens for upcoming Apple Laptop (ended up being the Air)
September iPods

So, good job Digitimes…

As MacRumors editor, I read a lot of random articles…. and one of the most frustrating things is finding what sounds like a good relevant article… which at first glance seems fine, in the end, doesn’t quite make sense.

Here’s one I found yesterday:

Why Apple’s secretive approach is so effective - some researchers studied the effects of pre-announcing and not pre-announcing products and how that affected consumer spending.

It’s this pre-release hype makes people much more careful about what they buy. If you tell them that something is coming at some point in the future, they will evaluate everything that’s out there very carefully. But if you just drop something into their laps, all they’ll think about is the brand. And if they like that, ker-ching!

To sum up:

Pre-release announcement = more cautious buying habits
Immediate release = impulse buying

The article presumes that Apple takes advantage of this psychological tendency. The problem lies in the exact definition of “immediate release”. The research article isn’t published yet, so we have to rely on a press release.

If you define “immediate release” as actually available in stores (to see and touch), then Apple’s brand new products rarely fall in this category. Apple TV, Apple TV 2.0, iPhone, MacBook Air all had week to month lead times before they were available. The iPhone, itself, was 6 months from release, and no pre-orders were possible.

So how does this help prove the author’s point? I don’t think it does at all.

Now if you redefine “immediate release” to “can preorder immediately”, then an argument can be made for the MacBook Air. Apple announced the Air, and you could impulsively buy it, without doing research. Ok sure…

But what about Apple TV? The original one (codenamed iTV) was pre-announced months in advance, even before it adopted the “Apple TV” name. So, this would argue that Apple suffered (not benefited) from this pre-announce strategy.

What about the iPhone? Apple pre-announced the iPhone on January 9, 2007. No pre-orders were available and it wasn’t available until June 2007.

It was a nice theory, with some actual research to back it up, but in the end Apple’s “secretive approach” seems to have no correlation with this research.

This year, MacRumors’ coverage of the Macworld San Francisco 2008 keynote address knocked it out of the park. Reviews were universally positive, and it makes me really proud of what we’ve accomplished.

What makes this accomplishment even more impressive is that we’re a relatively rag-tag crew pulling it together against better funded sites with far better keynote access. No one at MacRumors is a full timer. At present, we’re still a combination of part-timers and volunteers.

In the end, I was unable to get a “keynote” media pass to Macworld. No big surprise — despite our size, MacRumors doesn’t get much recognition from Apple (or IDG). This, however, means that I had to buy my own ticket (Superpass) into the Keynote, and stand in line to get a good seat. Of course, the night before I became nervous about not getting a good enough seat… which means I ended up on the sidewalk at 1am (and I wasn’t first in the Superpass line) the night before trying to get some sleep. I got maybe an hour of sleep before people starting milling about, and I started getting uncomfortably cold. So, I ended up chatting and moving around (to keep warm) for the next 7 hours while I awaited keynote access.

In the end, it was me and Jeff Longo in the Keynote providing updates from mid-way-back seats. We had a volunteer crew at home handling the server side and processing data. But that was enough to provide the best keynote coverage on the web.

I like to think that due to our limited resources, we’ve had to work smarter and harder in order to keep up. We also aren’t restricted by the ever-important “page view” metric that tends to drive the more commercial sites’ coverage. We employed additional servers and multiple Content Delivery Network (CDN’s) to support keynote traffic, but due to our efficient setup, we are able to run it at a fraction of the cost.

I’m sure competition will increase, especially after our success this year, but we’ll continue to step up our features. This year, we added large (640×480) photos, and an iPhone/iPod touch formated site. There will be more to come.

MacRumors.com has developed a unique culture over the years, which is a product of its primary author (myself), I suppose.

MacRumors was never all about the rumors, but clearly, that’s been a big focus of the site. In the early days, rumors were shunned by the mainstream media. This was before blogs took off, and Apple rumors became regular CNBC content.

Instead, there used to be a couple of established rumor sites, and then there was the mainstream Mac web. And apple rumors would never be published on the mainstream Mac web. This all changed in the past few years, seemingly around the time that Apple sued ThinkSecret and subpoenaed several rumor sites. It’s hard to say whether this legitimization of rumor sites contributed to rumors jumping into the mainstream, or if it would have happened anyway.

Regardless, as blogs have become more mainstream, there’s a few gadget sites (Gizmodo and Engadget) which have grown an enormous audience. I’ve personally found the most curious part of their success is the sheer volume of updates. It’s not uncommon for them to have 50-100 posts in one day. Is their traffic simply a side-product of having so many pages for people to view? Or do people really want this much content? Even if some of it, is… well, less than interesting.

MacRumors has always been more of a quality over quantity site. Early on, this was easy, since Apple news and rumors tended to come a little slower than they do these days. This was also because I was never a full-time blogger, so by necessity, I couldn’t update as often.

Recently, I thought, would MacRumors benefit from much more frequent updates? In the end, the answer seems to be “no”. As a side effect of the all my efforts over the years, the site has drawn a certain audience. And a few vocal ones have made it clear that they want quality over quantity and relevant topics on the front page of MacRumors. The front page is also seen as somewhat sacred — with strong objections when seeminglly “unworthy” content appears on it. I realize that this is a direct result of how I’ve treated the front page… protecting it from throw-away stories as much as possible.

I also believe you shouldn’t lose your focus and turn away from your core audience. MacRumors has grown to be the largest Mac news or rumor site on the internet, and I believe the current format has contributed to that growth. I do have plans to expand content and add features over time, but in a way that preserves the essence of MacRumors.