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Posts Tagged ‘steve jobs’

End Of An Era: Talk and Tribute to Steve Jobs Through Social Media

Last night I was sitting down to write a blog post about the sentiment around Apple’s iPhone event that happened on Tuesday (which wasn’t nearly as bad as you would have thought by looking at the tweets I saw in my stream). But just as I sat down to write I took a quick peek at my Twitter stream and couldn’t believe what I saw. Steve Jobs, founder and long time CEO of Apple and inspiration to geeks everywhere had passed away. I didn’t know if it was one of those Twitter rumors or not, but a quick visit to apple.com confirmed that for the second time in almost as many months I’d have to do a last minute change on what I would write about because of news about Steve Jobs.

I saw this news just after 8pm(EST) last night after not seeing anything on the internet for the past hour and a half. By then, Twitter was already exploding with people talking about the untimely passing of the tech mogul. It took a little while for the news to sink in and I spent a bit of time reading what people were saying throughout my various social networks before I decided that I need to start tracking this through our Sysomos software. At 8:30pm(EST) I used MAP and did a search for the following terms that I thought would show up or already saw people using: “steve jobs” OR stevejobs OR ripsteve OR ripjobs OR ripstevejobs OR #stevejobs OR #ripsteve OR #ripjobs OR #ripstevejobs OR #stevejobs. At this time, which was still shortly after the news broke I was already able to find 1,081 blog posts, 1,790 online news articles, 618 forum posts and 249,042 tweets containing my search terms yesterday.

It’s important that I point out at this time that while the tweets were starting to pour in about Jobs passing, a lot of those blog posts and news articles at that time were still from a bit earlier in the day and were likely talking about Jobs in relation to the Apple iPhone event from the day before. I actually pulled up a buzzgraph at this time as well to see what all the talk was currently about and found that I was right, it was too soon for it all to be about Steve’s death. The following buzzgraph shows that talk at this time was still focused around iPhones, but it changed as time went on.

I decided to keep following how the talk of this progressed as more and more people heard the news and took to social media to talk about it with their friends and peers. By 9:30pm(EST) I found that all the mediums had started to really pick up and tak about Steve Jobs. At this time there was 1,905 blog posts, 3,836 online news articles, 1,483 forum posts and 570,414 tweets.

I then continued to track the numbers of Steve Jobs talk through the night at different intervals. Half an hour after my last check, at 10pm(EST) numbers had risen to 2,298 blog posts, 4,752 online news articles, 2,156 forum posts and 636,924 tweets.

And through the night, numbers looked like the following:

Midnight(EST)

1am(EST)

4am(EST)

8:30am(EST)

I took my final screen grab at 9:30am(EST) this morning. By this time, everyone that was sleeping when the news first broke would have been awake and heard about Jobs. At this time there was 13,611 blog posts, 33,484 online news articles, 27,832 forum posts and 2.5 million tweets about Steve Jobs in about a 24 hour time span. This is very reminiscent to how talk of Bin Laden’s death spread through social media.

At this time as well, our buzzgraph which shows words being used in conjunction with our search terms had also significantly changed. While the buzzgraph I saw at 8:30pm was still focused on words that reflected Tuesday’s iPhone announcement, this morning it was now filled with words of people talking about their sadness of Jobs death an stories and accomplishments of his life.

I also took a snapshot of where all the tweets were coming from. By just taking a quick look at this map it’s easy to see that Steve Jobs had an effect on people around the globe and these people had taken to social media to talk about it.

Steve Jobs was a visionary that changed the world of technology forever. Without his iPod, I don’t think that the MP3 would have caught on as quickly as it did. Even people who could be considered to be Jobs’ main competitors knew how much he had changed the world and they weren’t hesitant to pay their respects to the man. Google put a very minimalistic tribute to him right on their main search page. Blackberry (RIM) sent out a tweet with their condolences and even Bill Gates, who some may have considered Jobs’ number one competitor in life, wrote a short piece on his personal blog to pay his respect.

 

 

It’s no question that today is a sad day in the world of tech. Steve jobs was a visionary and a leader in the industry. He will be very missed by many people, myself included, but if the numbers that showed talk about him in only about 12 hours are any indication, he will not be forgotten.

By Sheldon Levine - October 6th, 2011 - 14 Comments »
Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Events, Samples, Social Media, Technology

Steve Jobs Steps Down, Geeks Everywhere Cry

I was all prepared to sit down and write a blog post about how quickly talk of yesterday’s earthquake along the North American east coast spread, but sometimes something comes up that’s just way more important. That something happened mere hours ago when it was announced that Steve Jobs will be stepping down from his role as Apple’s CEO.

There’s never been any doubt about Jobs’ health before as he’s been known to take extended leaves of absence, but this time seems a little more serious as he’s actually given up his title as CEO. He may not be completely out of the picture however as he said he will be staying on as a chairman, but what that means is anyone’s guess. Taking his place as CEO will be Tim Cook, who was previously the COO for Apple.

Using MAP, our social media monitoring and analytics platform, I decided to take a snap shot of what was being said through the world of social media about the big news. In just a few hours since the announcement was made (I’m sure it’s even more as I write this and will more than double by the time you read this) I found 1,761 blog posts, 2,854 online news articles, 755 forum posts and 187,928 tweets talking about Steve Jobs.

The tweets I found were coming in from across the globe, as illustrated in the heat map below.

A buzzgraph, which shows us the words most used in conjunction with my search terms, seems to tell the entire story. In the center we find the word “resign” and “resignation” which is really the heart of the story. Then, all around we can see words that tell the story of Jobs’ time with Apple including “contributed”, “innovation”, and “success”. Then we can see words that talk about his illness including “pancreatic” reffering to his cancer and “unfortunate”. Finally we can also see words that talk of Apple’s future, which include Jobs’ “successor” Tim “Cook” and  his new role as “chairman”.

People really loved Steve Jobs and a look at the sentiment around the story shows that people are upset at the news.

Finally, I decided to pull out a few conversations from different mediums so you can get a feel for what is being said.

Blogs

Twitter

Online news articles

 

UPDATE: The numbers listed above were taken at about 9:15pm(EST) last night (August 24). As predicted, news about Steve Jobs has been heavily passed around and at 9:15am(EST) this morning I found 12,612 blogs posts, 16,025 online news articles, 7,837 forum posts and 486,486 tweets all mentioning Steve Jobs since the story broke.

By Sheldon Levine - August 25th, 2011 - No Comments »
Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Samples, Social Media

Post-Jobs, Will Apple Get More Social?

The extent of Steve Jobs’ latest leave of absence from Apple is a mystery other than it will last until at least June. There has been rampant chatter about what the lack of Jobs at the helm means for Apple’s future, particularly when many Apple watchers are starting to ask what’s next after the phenomenal success of the MacBoo, iPod and iPhone.

If Jobs stays on the sidelines for a long period of time, another question is whether Apple’s approach to social media will change. While most major consumer-facing companies have charged into social media, Apple has taken, at best, a tepid approach.

In the Apple world, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and YouTube have little significance – a contrast to the tsunami of activity about Apple within the social milieu.

While it might be unfair to describe Apple’s take as social media as disdain, it has definitely not taken by social media. This shouldn’t be a surprise for a company that is surprisingly mediocre at media and blogger relations.

To Apple (and Jobs) the marketing and advertising are the products; Apple make ‘em, and the world generates the buzz by talking about them. Why would Apple get into social media when there are thousands of people doing a great job already on its behalf?

Apple’s biggest step into social media was the launch last year of Ping, a music social network that hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm. You could argue that part of Ping’s modest acceptance is that social media isn’t within Apple’s core DNA.

If Jobs, however, is on the sidelines for an extended period of time, maybe this could create an opportunity for the executives running the show to embrace social media – even in a modest way that Jobs would never have considered.

While no one expects Apple to jump enthusiastically on the social media bandwagon, there is no doubt it could by a dynamic and effective player given the passion of its consumers and their willingness to engage about all things Apple.

By Mark Evans - January 19th, 2011 - 1 Comment »
Tags: , , ,
Posted in Social Media

Why Apple Doesn’t Use Social Media

TechCrunch reported yesterday that Apple is starting to increase its use of Twitter.

For any other world-class, consumer-facing company, this news would probably have been met with a shrug. But for Apple, this is major news because Apple hasn’t embraced social media, even though it’s all rage from a communications, marketing and sales perspective. Apple, which has always marched to the beat of its own drum, is not a social media user, aside from a few low-profile Twitter accounts such as iTunesTrailers

So why is that? Why is Apple sitting on the social media sidelines, while the rest of the world jumps on the bandwagon?

Perhaps the biggest explanation may be that Apple doesn’t need to do social media itself – not when you’ve got millions of consumers more than happy to blog, tweet, video and podcast about their love for Apple and Steve Jobs.

In a sense, Apple has outsourced social media.

Another reason may be that Apple’s marketing campaigns are so good that social media is unnecessary. A case in point are the popular Apple vs. Windows TV ads, which have attracted a lot of word-of-mouth and YouTube views. Again, no need to do social media itself.

And for all the talk about brands having conversation with their customers and potential customers, Apple is having conversations but in different ways. Jobs’ annual keynotes at Macworld is the biggest conversation in the high-world. Steve talks, and then everyone talks back in social and traditional media.

Another venue where Apple is having conversations are the Apple Stores where you can walk in, and have a conversation with a real person as opposed an avatar.

Maybe Apple is the exception to the rule when it comes to social media. Maybe Apple doesn’t need social media or, at least, to do it much itself.

Why do you think?

By Mark Evans - October 21st, 2009 - 3 Comments »
Tags: , , ,
Posted in Social Media

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