On the Eve of WWDC 2011.
Yes, I’m a fan of Apple products. I’ve also read (but do not purport to be an expert of) much of Apple’s history, the result of which is a significant amount of respect and admiration for the sum total of Apple’s brand and leadership.
I’m a fan of any company that combines beautifully-designed products with fearless leadership, smashing the status quo along the way. The truth is there just aren’t that many companies that fit the bill.
Now that I’ve written my novel-esque disclaimer trying to persuade you of my objectivity regarding all things “Apple”, I’ve been thinking (not too hard, don’t worry) about tomorrow’s WWDC keynote and specifically, what’s going on with Apple and Twitter. I certainly understand the handiness of being able to connect to Twitter in numerous, interesting ways from within iOS but there’s so much talk about it, the black helicopters in my head are circling. Is this only a technology relationship of convenience or is it something more?
I believe it was last year (time can be such a blur) when Jobs had Zuck over to his house to dinner, which is apparently one of, if not Jobs’ favorite location for doing the “big deals”. And there were a few speed bumps integrating iTunes/Ping/Facebook. I guess I’m just wondering how big is Apple’s appetite for social media? Apple knows content is king and I think it knows user-created content (email, pictures, blogs, etc.) are tantamount to content. Apple moved from providing content (music, movies, apps via iTunes & Mac App Store) to user-created content (MobileMe) and tomorrow is likely dropping all those ingredients into the iCloud cauldron.
So why are my cranial black helicopters doing loops? How aggressive is Apple is going to get with social medai and their coffers of cash? I’m doing my best to avoid theorizing Apple will buy a big social media player like Twitter but … well … ? Probably not, I know. They bought Quattro Wireless after a failed attempt to buy Admob … big ol’ datacenter in NC … inviting all the international press … all this talk about Twitter? Not that Twitter is insignificant but I keep thinking, in light of Lion, iOS5, iCloud … who cares about Twitter tomorrow? What could be happening that’s generating so much talk?
We’ll know soon enough.
