Jason Calacanis and the Stupidity of Rumors
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Rumors
In the most recent episode of MacBreak Weekly, Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, and Alex Lindsay were discussing a recent issue involving Jason Calacanis (episode 179 entitled “QUID PRO AIR”). It is involving Calacanis’s claim that he received a review unit of the “Apple Tablet,” now the iPad, which of course was a complete hoax from the beginning. One that if I may say so, I never believed from the beginning.
Let’s begin with the obvious. Jason Calacanis may have been involved starting Silicon Alley Reporter and Weblogs Inc., he is not a Journalist. He is an entrepreneur and businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Mahalo as well as an investor in such ventures as Gowalla and gdgt among others. Why would Apple send a unit to Calacanis and not Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal or David Pogue of the New York Times? Both of whom have been champions of the Apple media spin machine.
If you look back at the posts Calacanis made to his Twitter, you read things such as, “Planting seeds in farmville on my apple tablet…so cool how you can shake the tablet to plant seeds then wobble it to spread water around” and “Off to bed, but I assure you I’m not joking and the specs are real…. Most of all that this is best gadget ever made and NOT overhyped.” On top of all this, you would think that the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.com and CNNMoney might have picked up the phone and called Calacanis to confirm what he was posting on Twitter.
What Calacanis has demonstrated is that Tech Journalists, particularly in the professional world, are starved of and addicted to Apple rumors. And it is unfortunately the fault of those who want these rumors such as speculators on the stock market. Merlin Mann’s assertion that Calacanis has some sort of responsibility “as a Journalist” to his readers is ridiculous, and I say that with respect to Merlin as a commentator and as a humorist. Calacanis himself is a commentator and a humorist if you’ve ever heard him as a panelist on This Week in Tech, but is more of a commentator on business and particularly startup companies as the host of This Week in Startups, or TWiST. It is not his responsibility to uphold the “integrity” that is the absurdity that is the Apple rumor-mill.
There is some good that can come of this though, and that is that Calacanis now has the freedom to do this and hopefully not ignite such a firestorm of controversy again. Overall however, it has, according to Calacanis, increased his following on Twitter and traffic to Mahalo. He is intelligent and has been very successful in the past, especially with Weblogs Inc. which he and his partner Brian Alvey sold to AOL for $25 million. Of course, in a few more weeks, no one will even remember this happens and the media will have moved onto a new Apple related rumor.
Thin and Light MacBook Rumors
Posted by Andrew | Filed under MacBook, Rumors
There have recently been a lot of rumors floating around concerning a thin and light version of the MacBook coming out soon. At this point in time, the rumors say that it will be introduced this coming January at MacWorld.
It makes a lot of sense for Apple to enter the thin and light market at this time. Thin and Lights are very popular amongst people in business and would be ideal for college students and people working in the field. And who could do a thin and light better than Apple? I carry around this 15 inch MacBook Pro with me everywhere, and most of my textbooks are heavier than it.
So, there’s a lot of speculation about certain aspects of the product like the screen size, whether it will be a 12 inch or 13 inch screen. There also are a lot of people claiming it will have a flash memory hard drive. I would have it be a 12.1 inch widescreen display which should afford enough room for the keyboard used on the MacBook Pro. I would still include a standard laptop hard drive but include a large flash drive along side it. Similar to the concept of the hybrid hard drive, this would improve performance and battery life.
They could call it the MacBook lite and if they could sell it at the $1500 price point like others have reported, they would easily beat out Sony and Toshiba in price by over $500. The question is can they beat them in size and weight as well as battery life and reliability.