This super idiotic article on Motley Fool is number one article on Google Finance (read at your own risk). One below is third article. No mention of Apple refreshing the iMac line.
Why Apple is in worse shape then it thinks
http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/why-apple-is-in-worse-shape/424512
Could an Apple investment turn out to be rotten?
http://www.emailwire.com/release/45017-Could-an-Apple-investment-turn-out-to-be-rotten.htm
GotWake 3:30 pm on July 27, 2010 558 days ago Reply
You would think the idiot would learn how to spell. I love the same old arguments. Everything is cheaper and better than Apple products. Maybe he is kin to the idiot that wrote the piece about how Apple should give all of its cash to investors and take on some debt.
RattyUK 5:31 pm on July 27, 2010 558 days ago Reply
Got into an argument with an old friend today about the cost of the new hexacore macs. He was complaining that they were too expensive at $4,500. He was doing really well until I pointed out that the a similar spec’d machine at Dell was almost a grand and a half more.
mikeinmontreal 5:49 pm on July 27, 2010 558 days ago Reply
I saw the first article….what a joke…but what about those Discussion Board nutjobs…Matt goes away, Fonz shows up, and now this Jay dude….WTF????
conshmillo 6:30 pm on July 27, 2010 558 days ago Reply
@mikeinmontreal
Thing with those geek types is that they think if you do not want to build your own computer in a shoe box for $200 dollars you are an idiot.
We all have values which subconsciously guide our decisions. There is certain segment of population for which “cheap” is the #1 value in their hierarchy of values. They are disgusted and horrified if you buy anything they consider not cheap. This does not necessary mean poor people. Some poor people do not have cheap as #1 value in their hierarchy of values as they realize cheap is sometimes more expensive than quality expensive. As quality expensive lasts longer. Most of the Apple clients are professionals that do not specialize in building computers. They are specialists in their own fields and they need to use computer to get job done in those fields. They do not want to be figuring out mother boards and command lines and patches and blue screens. They just want to use computers for which they were intended. Apple has highest customer satisfaction precisely because they are giving people easy to use, ubiquitous, worry free environment. Those geeks can be saying whatever they want but this wouldn’t be the case if Apple wasn’t delivering. Apple must be the smartest computer maker on the planet. They decided to sell computers to people that do not have cheap as a #1 value. They do business with people that have ease of use and quality as a number one rule when buying a product and that do not mind to pay a little extra for that quality.
RattyUK 5:58 pm on July 27, 2010 558 days ago Reply
Well to be honest Google has done the level best to kill of that discussion board. At least here stuff can be discussed with intelligence and decorum.
rastard 4:21 am on July 28, 2010 558 days ago Reply
If you thought the Motley Fool article was idiotic, wait until you see this one:
Study: iPad owners are selfish, unkind anti-geeks
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20011882-71.html
Bleah.
conshmillo 4:50 pm on July 28, 2010 557 days ago Reply
@rastard
“Study: iPad owners are selfish, unkind anti-geeks”
I read original of it on Wired. My comment was: Is MyType whole subsidiary of Gizmodo?
RattyUK 9:40 am on July 28, 2010 558 days ago Reply
“Study: iPad owners are selfish, unkind anti-geeks”
Well the “unkind anti-geeks” might come from a knee-jerk reaction from being told by all the smart-ass wunderkids how big a “fail” the iPad would be. This Google-driven anti-Apple hype needs to quieten down a bit.
rastard 1:51 pm on July 28, 2010 558 days ago Reply
Google-driven? Why do you (and Consh before you) say that?
Aside from a few snarky references to Apple at their developer conference a couple of months ago, I don’t recall ever seeing any actual anti-Apple sentiment expressed by Google execs, employees, PR, etc. I actually know a fair number of people who work at each company (and a number of them are actually friends with one-another), and they all seem to have great respect for the other company and each other’s products (I don’t know any Apple employees with Android phones, but a lot of the Googlers seem to have Macbooks and iPhones).
Sure, there are Tech Bloggers who try to increase their viewership by bashing Apple and/or Google and/or spinning some big controversy as existing between them (that behavior isn’t anything new for the media) and of course there are Android fanboys and Apple fanboys who want to one-up one another — but neither company is responsible for any of those folks.
Regarding Consh’s belief that Google perhaps manipulates articles on Apple. I suppose it’s possible, but a quick search on Bing News produces most of the same stories/articles. The Motley Fool blather about AAPL was up there yesterday (listed 3rd or 4th though, IIRC), and the #1 result for a news search for Apple iPad right now is the same stupid story about iPad owners being elite, selfish, wealthy:
http://www.bing.com/news/search?q=apple+ipad&FORM=YGNR&p1=NewsVertical+SortByDate%3d%221%22
I own a bunch of Apple products, and think they’re great. I use a lot of Google’s products, and think they’re best-in-breed too. Most people I know feel the same about both. What are you all seeing that that makes you think Google is driving anti-Apple hype, or that there even needs to be a battle between them?
conshmillo 4:46 pm on July 28, 2010 557 days ago Reply
You can start with removal of Google Finance Discussions. It was basically Apple Finance discussion board as none of the other discussion boards came even close to the amount of traffic Apple board generated. Reason I feel Google is contributing to this (in a big way) is amount of negativity we have seen in past month about Apple. There are not many outlets that generate news from various sources like Google News and Google Finance. Both of those sources were pounded with negative articles constantly. You can argue it was because blogosphere went nuts. But I will argue how it went independently nuts? They all started raging about Apple because 0.5% of people complained about antenna? I don’t think so. You must allow negative to flow through and block positive in order to generate such a negativity for no issue in such a short time. Who is at gates of this? Who controls the flow? Google does. Sergey and Larry might be “No evil”, but Schmidt certainly is not.
rastard 2:32 am on July 29, 2010 557 days ago Reply
@conshmillo
“You can start with removal of Google Finance Discussions.”
I guess I’ve always attributed the disappearing Finance Board postings to the Google Finance team’s incompetence rather than any malicious/biased intent. Either that, or Google really just didn’t care about their boards (that would actually be my guess). The disappearing posts seemed to be pretty random and equal opportunity to me. For example, while I think stuff you wrote disappeared, it seemed like stuff posted by Draiko/MattDelmas frequently did as well. The only person whose postings always seemed to remain untouched was Buddy.
FWIW, one of the top stories on Google News about Google itself right now is one by Appleinsider that puts a pretty negative spin on Android:
“Millions of Android users hit by malicious data theft app” (ouch!)
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/29/millions_of_android_users_hit_by_malicious_data_theft_app.html
When searching Bing News and Yahoo News for “Android Security”, however, that rather inflammatory headline doesn’t even appear in their respective top 10 results . Instead, they’re covering that exact same topic, but have lead with articles which are actually far more complementary to Android:
“App Genome Project’ Exposes Potential Smartphone Risks”
http://www.darkreading.com/insiderthreat/security/app-security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226300078
“Experts: Android, iPhone security different but matched”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20009362-245.html
If Google were manipulating coverage, one would think they’d bury all stories that were unfavorable to them. Because they don’t (or at least not all of them), it leads me to believe that they really are just posting the stories that are most linked by other sites (i.e. whatever it is that their renown Pagerank algorithm does). Who knows though…
RattyUK 8:54 am on July 29, 2010 557 days ago Reply
@rastard “Regarding Consh‚Äôs belief that Google perhaps manipulates articles on Apple. I suppose it‚Äôs possible, but a quick search on Bing News produces most of the same stories/articles.”
Indeed but what I think Conshmillo was referring to was the news on the Apple page of Google finance. Not discussions not other news. What he was saying that the top right headlines on that page are being manipulated to promote the BAD news over good.
On Tuesday when Apple refreshed the machines the Google Finance page for Apple had those news items he linked to with no mention of the new machines.
Yes Bing will also return the same information but it isn’t sitting in a trading page, for traders with selected news as opposed to random news as it appears. So Google are curating the news for that site and are making things appear bad even when there is plenty of good news around.
rastard 11:24 am on July 29, 2010 557 days ago Reply
@rattyuk
Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying. I understand the area you’re both referring to now.
I’ve never noticed a negative Apple bias up there, but I’ll take both your word for it, because I’m realizing that I rarely even look up at that section anymore. The headlines in it generally never seem to be related directly enough to Apple to even make it worth my while to click on them, so I think I’ve pretty much decided that top-right feed is useless (and instead follow the feed at http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=Apple instead).
Currently item B is “Motorola 2Q earnings climb, revenue stabilizes”, item E is “Motorola’s quarterly profit surges”, and item N is “Stock Buy: Ford Motor, Inc.”. Yes, I recognize that Motorola is a competitor and am sure there’s probably *something* relevant to AAPL in each of those articles, but c’mon Google — do you really think an article headlined “Stock Buy: Ford Motor, Inc.” is worth posting as a selected item for an AAPL news feed?
Anyway, thanks again for clarifying. I’m going to start keeping an eye on that top-right feed. I just figured they were incompetent (or just didn’t care enough about Google Finance to put resources into making it useful), but am now interested in seeing if there’s a actually a bias there too.
conshmillo 11:53 am on July 29, 2010 557 days ago Reply
@rastard
This is from today’s Wired:
Exclusive: Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/exclusive-google-cia/