Nielsen: Apple is tops for hardware buzz
Here's an interesting measure of how effectively Apple (AAPL) can whip the tech world into a frenzy — even without Steve Jobs there to stir things up.
According to a report issued Monday by Nielsen Online, "anticipatory buzz" in May drew more than 55.7 million unique visitors to Apple's website — more than double that of Hewlett Packard (HPQ) and 25 times the site for Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox.
The buzz got even louder in June with the unveiling of the iPhone 3GS. At one point between June 8 and June 9, nearly 0.6% of the nearly 100 million blogs, groups, boards, social networks and other consumer generated media that Nielsen tracks were talking about the new device. According to the report:
"the new iPhone 3G S sent blog mentions up 1,226 percent week-over-week on June 8, the day of the announcement. After the initial announcement, buzz dipped but again picked up after the phone became available to consumers on June 19, with blog mentions more than doubling compared to the week prior."
You can actually see Apple's buzz machine in action in the accompanying "BlogPulse" fever chart:
Nielsen Online is a division of the research company that has been measuring — and indirectly shaping — media content since it began tracking radio audiences in the 1930s and TV shares in the 1950s.
In the promotional material on its website, Nielsen offers the schematic drawing at right to suggest how its "BuzzMetrics" data mining service extracts nuggets of intelligence by harvesting raw data from sites like this one, cleaning it up, and giving it a good polishing with its relevance and analytics algorithms.
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“55.6 million of them , visit because apple.com is the default website on all there apple computers. while on windows computers the default website is not microsoft.com instead it is either dell.com or hp.com or etc…”
WTF?! Are you really that retarded? I don't know a single mac owner that has Apple.com as their homepage. We choose our own just like PC users do. I'm sorry that you aren't bright enough to figure out how to change your default settings on your PC, but the rest of us (mac and pc) users usually do that the first time we power up our new computer.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Apple was the only company to make any announcements in the month of April. Seeing them as the biggest player, for the one month per year when they make their big announcement… not terribly surprising.
If you'd look at the graph, you'll see that apple was sitting about on par with MagicJack before the announcement. Color me unimpressed.
I wish some of that buzz would turn into Apple product buys and investor purchases. I certainly think that people are buying iPhones and MacBooks but the share price certainly doesn't reflect it. Apple was able to sell almost double the amount of iPhones than expected and the stock didn't move up one bit. Palm was able to sell Pres beyond expectations and the stock moves up even if it goes nowhere in the long run.
I'm not sure what's holding Apple back except maybe Steve Jobs and even his liver transplant seems like it would be a plus for Apple.
We should all take these reports with a grain of salt. These are not scientific results but best estimates based on outside sources that do not have the actual figures. No need to look at this as the holy grail of data.
ex ped: These may not be the holy grail of data, whatever that may be, but I'm not sure you can call them unscientific.
What surprises me is Sun Microsystems #4 on the chart. I thought these guys were doomed and about to shut out the lights except for the fact that Oracle is buying them.
to be fair this article about "Hardware Manufactures" not software companies. the iphone 3gs has been a been big draw factor to apple web site. if anything they were comparing it to xbox.com
Typical hater–don't you think Mac users know how to change their home pages? Get a life and get your nose out of Bill Gate's butt.
"55.6 million of them , visit because apple.com is the default website on all there apple computers. while on windows computers the default website is not microsoft.com instead it is either dell.com or hp.com or etc…"
That is the lamest excuse I've heard in a while. Rhetorical question: Since Dell and HP sell many more computers than Apple, why don't their websites have a combined larger audience?
55.7 million
55.6 million of them , visit because apple.com is the default website on all there apple computers. while on windows computers the default website is not microsoft.com instead it is either dell.com or hp.com or etc …
but visitors who visit seeking information, i don't have doubt that microsoft knowledge base alone could hit 55.7 million alone. despite of the rest of subdomains under microsoft.com like technet and msdn etc…
Anyways, these results dosnt prove your head message "Here’s an interesting measure of how effectively Apple (AAPL) can whip the tech world into a frenzy — even without Steve Jobs there to stir things up."
I am fairly certain that Nielsen Company has a more refined strategy of measuring data than to allow statistics to be skewed due to web page hits derived from the first time a user launches their internet browser….there is a lot more going in to their data mining process hence the term "unique visitors" in sampling and measuring data. Even-though there will always be a percentage of error in collecting data there is little to dispute as it is obvious that Apple has done the best job creating the strongest brand on the list which has spilled over into a lifestyle and a trend that in turn creates more interest or "buzz" from the public.