“Yesterday, tech blog Engadget received supposed insider information about a delay of the iPhone until October, and another delay for Leopard, pushing the new OS to January of 2008. Duty bound to report to its readers, it filed a post. Within minutes, some people who read the post were selling their Apple stock, which dipped 3% in mid-day trading yesterday. The origin of the information was an internal Apple memo…which turned out to be fake. Fake or not, Apple’s market capitalization sunk by $4 billion once the memo became public,” Eric Zeman blogs for InformationWeek.
“Some are crying for an SEC investigation. According to a Business 2.0 blog, one shareholder sold 5 million shares within 10 to 15 minutes of seeing the post,” Zeman reports.
“Luckily, the turmoil was brief. The stock recovered most of its value by the end of the day (it closed down 0.17%). There are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered. Who really sent the memo? How did they do it from within the Apple system? Did they hack in? We can only assume that Apple is hunting down the responsible party and will take appropriate action once that person is found,” Zeman writes.
“What are bloggers to do, however, when fed erroneous information that looks real? Their gut instinct is to post first, question later. Lessons learned in Journalism 101, however, would have prevented the debacle. It never hurts to pick up the phone and call a company rep to confirm the validity of the information. Will this delay the story? Sure. But in the end, accuracy is more important than being the first to report a story,” Zeman writes.
Full article here.
It is only hoax if Apple ships iPhone on schedule.
Just my $0.02
Y’all should read the comments posted on Engadget for this story. Frakkin’ hilarious. All the Mac-haters had a field day about “Fanboys” and how this would shut them up. Etc, etc., etc. Frakkin’ morons.
Anonymous: Check out”Why Doesn’t Microsoft Have A Cult Religion?” on the same site. Also some frakkin’ hilarious comments. There are some seriously disturbed people out there! No surprise.
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/05/why_doesnt_micr.html
Whomever did this is obviously an idiot or a daytrader…Of course, these could be considered one in the same so…
Hmm…. people finally realizing that bloggers are NOT journalists????
“What are bloggers to do, however, when fed erroneous information that looks real? Their gut instinct is to post first, question later. Lessons learned in Journalism 101, however, would have prevented the debacle. It never hurts to pick up the phone and call a company rep to confirm the validity of the information.” —MDN
It “never hurts” to pick up the phone???!!! I would express it differently: It is the solemn responsibility of anyone who publishes information for public consumption to verify their information before publishing!
Every blogger in the universe now wants the same priviledges that real journalists enjoy. Fine, let them start acting like real journalists!
I posted this same thing on the Information Week site. Engadget made a huge mistake yesterday.
First, this “trusted source” obviously cannot be very high in Apple’s organization as anyone with that stature would have known the email was fake. Sorry, Engadget, but having some guy in the mail room shovel you emails just isn’t good enough. At least not with information this critical.
Second, you don’t publish a story saying Apple put out a press release without there being, you know, a press release.
Third, a rush to be first has its downsides, too, and Engadget must take responsibility for that. Live by the rushed story, die by the rushed story. I have no sympathy for them.
Finally, as others have stated, bloggers piss and moan about being “journalists”, so Engadget should be held to that standard.
@ No Squirt
Thanx for the link … the article was ok… (till they mentioned Enderle) but some of the comments were entertaining .. especially the one from the guy who said that the reason he would never switch to a Mac … was because of the “Mac Fanbois” …
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”LOL” style=”border:0;” />
Talk about ignorance !
But in the end, accuracy is more important than being the first to report a story
Not to blogs it isn’t. Welcome to the Internet age.
“It is the solemn responsibility of anyone who publishes information for public consumption to verify their information before publishing!”
Please cc that to REUTERS, only applies to non anti-american stories though.
Engadget is crap, very little credibility. Next.
It is unfortunate that Engadget didn’t check the validity of the story before posting it.
When bloggers have been sued to reveal sources, they have invoked the First Amendment and, after battles, won the right to call themselves journalists.
However, if you want to be a journalist, then you need to act responsibly.
Next time there a blogger is dragged into the courts and claims First Amendment rights, you can bet that this incident will be cited as a reason that blogs are not news publications and bloggers are not journalists.
Thanks, Engadget, for giving blogers a big black eye.
Jeff wrote “The Art of making stories about nothing. It’s back at 108. Next!”
and ?
stock goes down because people sell, some people lost a lot of money !
@ohcrap
Dude, have you never looked at Apple stock over the last few years. It’s highly volatile.
If you had to put a stop then do at 10 % or more.
textbook….
iPhone delay hoax briefly sinks Apple stock by $4 billion
Thursday, May 17, 2007 – 10:24 AM EDT
Fidelity and Wellington increase stakes in Apple Inc.
Thursday, May 17, 2007 – 05:19 PM EDT
Fidelity Investments, the world’s largest mutual-fund company…
just more proof that investment firms are stupid, reactive NOT proactive, and DIRTY UNDERHANDED %@#& %!*^$
MDN magic word : expected
time to ride the wave.. BUY! BUY! BUY!
Some day from now, the endgaget domain will be for sale… and guess what… nobody will buy it. They are, like the magic word, history !
Journalist have been doing it for years and engadget was right to post it, they had insiders telling them it was right and apple didn’t get back to them on time so lesson is better to apologies than to ask for permission.
@ DogGone: Uh, yes, I have looked at Apple stock for quite a number of years. And I know it’s volatile. But 5% at $108 seemed reasonable. You know, 5% is the new 10%. I took my lumps, I just needed to complain a little about a rumor messing with my portfolio. I know you’ve heard it before, but I actually did start this ride at $13.02 for some of my shares. And I did the old, sell when it’s up several dollars over a week or so, and buy back when it drops a few dollars, picking up four or five shares each time. I’m happy with it, and I even bit the bullet this time and bought back at $108. Now I’ve made back about half of the amount I lost on that flip, but I’m confident it is going much higher still.
I’ve posted a poll at my site with some mildly entertaining, yet
sadly, possibly realistic options. Feel free to drop in and vote.
Can’t vote in this forum, but poll set up at edf, here it is.
Enjoy!
http://www.everydayfinance.blogspot.com
AAPLE News – How bad do you think the Fallout will be from
TheStreet.com’s errant report on the iPhone shortage and subsequent
tumble in Apple shares?
There will be no fallout whatsoever. Cramer’s antics and his blogs
partake in rumors, pump/dump and speculation. I would expect nothing
less.
There will be a mild reaction. TheStreet.com doesn’t have real
credibility to begin with, so this is a just a blip on the Radar
screen
There will be massive repraisals; Cramer will issue an official
apology, new controls and procedures will be implemented at
TheStreet.com
The SEC will investigate. Politicians will pounce on the opportunity
to attack another “rich guy” catering to “rich people” who trade
stocks and invoke legislation in an attempt to avoid a repeat, messing
with the 1st amendment and their usual antics
best place to buy cialis online
buy cialis online canada pharmacy
buy cialis on line
buy cialis online canadian pharmacy
cheap cialis online canadian pharmacy
canadian pharmacy generic cialis
online canadian pharmacy cialis
canadian pharmacy cialis