Where are the Apple Employee blogs?

Posted on May 14, 2004 by Ian Betteridge

I thought I was the only person asking where Apple employees were blogging, but I was wrong: Dennis Cheung, who works for Microsoft’s MacBU, beat me to it.
Some of the comments come from anonymous Apple employees, and are somewhat illuminating. For example, this:

Part of the problem is that, as Apple employees, our every little word is picked apart and scrutnized for possible leaks of future products. We as employees are unable to change the situation, since secrecy is dictated from top down, and in any case it is integral to how Apple does business these days. We can’t even talk about products that are already released, because there is also the possibility of leaking future plans for the product.

I find that somewhat sad. After all, who’s going to steal Apple’s ideas? Microsoft? Microsoft can afford to wait until it’s out, and then copy the better ideas. And really, I doubt that Bill Gates is very surprised by much that’s in a Steve Jobs keynote speech.
I’m on my way out of the door soon, but when I get back I’m going to collate the Apple bloggers that are linked to in Dennis’ piece, and put them in the sidebar.

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  • khai

    actually, leaked information costs apple millions of dollars in foregone revenue. remember when the iMac DV’s came out? a german press “leaked” the stats and pictures of these machines weeks before announcement. Guess what happened to the then-current iMac sales leading up to the the announcement? They dropped like a bad habit. apple knows everybody steals their ideas, but from a business and marketing point of view, its important that unannounced products stay unannounced until they are ready.

  • Jacco Rens

    “Guess what happened to the then-current iMac sales leading up to the the announcement?”

    Yeah right! Apple is good at this too! Announce product X in januari, and have it shipping somewhere may …

    No sales for 3 months.

    Now we see the same with the G5, steve said in paris, 2003, that this summer, we’ll have an G5 3ghz… Wonder what happended to the PowerMac sales??

  • no body

    Apple employees are prohibited from identifying themselves as such in any public forum, unless they are designated spokespersons for whatever they are talking about, cleared through HR and Marketing.

    So, if you ever see a blog for an Apple employee, they are either a PR person/product evangelist, or are soon to be a former Apple employee.

  • Former Employee

    There was a time at Apple when we employees would eagerly await the next week’s version of MacWeek magazine to find out what we were doing next, whether a project was continuing or canceled… the place leaked like a sieve. And Apple was a joke.

    Steve Jobs changed that and it’s a change for the better. Leaks do affect future sales. Leaks destroy what little competitive advantage innovation affords. Imagine a leak of iPod. Imitators would have flooded the market at the soonest possible opportunity. The element of surprise and the quality of the product are why iPod is still leading.

    Most importantly, secrecy creates speculation. Speculation creates buzz. Buzz creates demand. When Apple speaks now, its voice carries weight precisely because it isn’t yakking all the time. And Steve Jobs is that voice. He controls the message–its quality… its tone… its style–just like the creator of this page. That’s the way it should be.

  • http://technovia.typepad.com Ian Betteridge

    Of course, it does Apple no good if someone leaks that a new machine is coming out in a month’s time – although having said that, Apple’s inventory management now is generally so good that they don’t have much in the channel to sell at that point anyway.

    “No body”s comment is interesting… and I’ll try and find out more. :)

  • http://radio.weblogs.com/0103061/ John

    Hmm. Google search for “apple employee blog” or “life at apple” quickly gets me on track to quite a few Apple people with weblogs.

    Of course, you won’t see them discussing details of future products, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have anything to say. Apple Employees have cats too, you know.

  • http://technovia.typepad.com Ian Betteridge

    Well it’s interesting that searching for “apple employee blogs” gives you more results about the lack of Apple employee’s blogging than actual bloggers! There are, indeed, a few out there – but it’s interesting how they differ from Microsoft blogs, and not necessarily in a good way. For example, blogs are an ideal way to communicate with developers, and the Tiger team should be blogging now a lot.