We the Media

Even before the first iPhone 4 left stores, and even as customers were enduring all manner of conditions while waiting in line for a chance to get their hands on Apple’s latest mobile phenomenon, the Web was already ablaze with reports about a possible design flaw in the wrap-around antenna that interferes with reception.

The story begins on the afternoon of June 23, when Fame Foundry started a discussion thread on the MacRumors community forum about a problem we encountered straight out of the box. Among the lucky 600,000 to successfully pre-order the highly sought-after device on June 15, we shot and posted this video to demonstrate the issue we had discovered:

In just over 24 hours since, the conversation in the discussion thread has continued across 46 pages, as other users have chimed in with their own theories, reviews, experiments and videos.

More significantly, the story of the apparent operating glitch has taken on a life of its own, leaping from the obscure fanboy territory of the MacRumors forum and ascending to the upper echelons of media.

The first to pick it up were tech blogs like Gizmodo, Mashable and Engadget. Soon after mainstream outlets including The Street, MSNBC and CNN followed suit. By the afternoon of June 24, Fame Foundry was fielding phone calls from reporters from national media organizations, all tracing back to the original YouTube video, which has received more than 400,000 views at the time of this posting.

The launch of the iPhone 4 has been a remarkable case study in the nature of today’s media and the ways and speed at which information spreads.

When photos and videos of a still-in-development iPhone 4 were published on Gizmodo, the story of how the device escaped the grasp of Apple’s famously impenetrable security and landed in the hands of a tech blogger became a much bigger story than the gadget’s shiny new design.

The launch of the iPhone 4 has been a remarkable case study in the nature of today’s media and the ways and speed at which information spreads.When the time arrived for the official announcement on June 7, Steve Jobs proved that the leaked photos had hardly stolen the device’s thunder, as he proudly introduced groundbreaking features such as video calling, 960-by-640 resolution display and high definition video recording. However, it is likewise worth noting that there were so many bloggers in attendance reporting live from the WWDC keynote event that a network overload brought Jobs’ product demonstration to a temporary standstill.

The hype surrounding iPhone 4 hit fever pitch on the first day of pre-orders. Apple racked up record-breaking sales, but this success story shared the headlines with the technical difficulties caused by the massive influx of traffic hitting their website, propelled largely by vocal frustrated customers who spent hours trying in vain to place their orders.

Returning to the events of the past two days, if a similar problem had occurred even just a few years ago, it would have taken much longer to come to light. In the absence of the instant connectivity of social media platforms and fan forums, users who encountered a reception issue might have assumed it was an isolated problem or that their particular device was defective, and Apple's customer service department would have been the only channel through which they could address their concerns.

By contrast, within hours of the first video being posted, there were legions of interconnected customers, bloggers and media outlets on the case, executing their own tests and drawing their own conclusions.

Interestingly, as of the time of this posting, the only response from Apple has come in an e-mail exchange between Steve Jobs and an iPhone 4 user (via MacRumors), in which Jobs describes the problem as a “Non issue. Just avoid holding it that way.”

Later, Jobs elaborated further on his position in a follow-up message:

Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.

And so begins the next chapter in the iPhone 4 saga. Not surprisingly, this response is already showing up on blogs across the Internet, spreading just as quickly as the initial complaints.

Such is the nature of PR in today's 24-hour, on-demand information free-for-all. A single user-generated video becomes a viral sensation that far outshines the typical puff piece stories on how many people are eagerly waiting in line to buy the next great thing. Consumer backlash starts with a groundswell that becomes a tidal wave. A few brief sentences in an e-mail from one of the world’s most powerful CEOs stands in lieu of a carefully crafted press release as the company’s official statement. There is constant push and pull as corporate entities like Apple attempt to steer public sentiment in their favor – a delicate balancing act that requires juggling the mainstream press, the blogger nation and the average consumer with a Facebook or Twitter account.

As the course of events surrounding the iPhone 4 launch demonstrates, no one is safe when there is a potential reporter behind every keyboard and every camera phone – not even Apple with its notoriously loyal fan base.

More...

June 26

Test Shows iPhone Antenna Issue Impacts Voice Transmission Too [Gizmodo]

June 29

Leaked: Apple's Internal iPhone 4 Antenna Troubleshooting Procedures [Boy Genius Report]

June 30

First iPhone 4 Class Action Suit Filed Against Apple and AT&T [Gizmodo]

July 2

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4 [Apple]

Apple "Stunned" to Find iPhones Show Too Many Bars [AP]

Class Action Lawyers Predictably Unimpressed with Apple's Statement [TechCrunch]

July 5

Apple Waiving 10% Restocking Fee for Returned iPhones [IntoMobile]

July 6

AppleCare: The iPhone Update Won't Solve the Antenna Problem [Gizmodo]

The iPhone is Ruining My Life! [Aol Small Business]

July 7

iPhone 4 Complaints Mounting: A Rocky Rollout [CIO]

iPhone 4: Officially a Hot Mess [Inc.]

July 12

Apple Deleting Mentions of Consumer Reports' iPhone 4 Piece on Forums, Can't Delete Your Thoughts [Engadget]

PR Experts: iPhone 4 Hardware Recall Is "Inevitable" [Cult of Mac]

July 13

iPhone Antenna Outcry Escalates with Recall Demand [MSNBC]

July 14

What Apple Must Do to Stop the Bleeding [Mashable]

Microsoft Exec Mocks iPhone 4, Dubs it Apple's Vista [Computerworld]

Video: Does iOS 4.1 Fix the iPhone 4's Death Grip Antenna Issue? [TechCrunch]

Every Week Apple Doesn't Act on iPhone 4 Antenna Could Cost $200M [AppleInsider]

Report: Apple Holding Friday Press Conference on iPhone 4 [PC Magazine]

July 15

Apple Engineer Told Jobs iPhone Antenna Might Cut Calls [Bloomberg]

New York Senator Charles Schumer Writes Open Letter to Steve Jobs [Boy Genius Report]

iPhone 4 Signal Issue Can Be Fixed With a Software Update? [MacRumors]

July 16

Live from Apple's iPhone 4 Phone Conference [Engadget]

Apple's "Antennagate" Mea Culpa – Free Case Until September 30 [ZDNet]

A Defiant Steve Jobs Confronts "Antennagate" [The Wall Street Journal]

Jobs Calls Bloomberg Antenna Article a "Total Crock" [MacNN]

July 17

Apple's Claims About Other Phones – There's a Response For That [The Wall Street Journal]

July 18

iPhone Defense Prompts New Debate [The Wall Street Journal]

July 19

"Antennagate" Reactions: RIM, Nokia, Taiwanese Animation [MacRumors]

HTC, Samsung Rebut Apple's Smartphone Claims [The Wall Street Journal]

Steve Jobs's Disastrous iPhone 4 Press Conference [Harvard Business Review]

 

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Cashing In: 5 Ways to Optimize Your Website's Conversion Rate

Got a website? Check. Strong traffic numbers? Check. Think you’ve got this online marketing thing licked? Think again. It doesn’t matter how many people are coming to your site if they aren’t taking action once they get there. If you want to make those traffic numbers count, you must find a way to convert visitors into customers. Some people would have you believe that all it takes is a nice website and a great product, and you’ll have customers beating down your doors. By this mode of thinking, if your sales are lackluster, it’s most likely an indication that something is wrong with your products, so you work day and night tweaking and tinkering your offering to give the people what you think they want. In reality, it’s more likely that you’ve overlooked some key elements in the design of your website, and now it’s costing you. If your website is performing well in traffic numbers but lacking in sales, it’s time to re-evaluate your site. Here are five key elements to examine and improve to ensure that you’re maximizing your opportunities to capture customers online:

1. Tell them where to go and what to do.

It’s a fact as simple as it is true: when you have a product or service to sell, you want to make sure people know exactly how to buy that product or service. There’s no point in saying you offer consulting services unless you provide a straightforward path to contact and hire you. There’s no point in displaying a product when there’s no immediately visible way to purchase it. Make sure you present a call to action that is obvious and direct. Look at your website through the eyes of the most technologically challenged user – one who has no clue how to navigate through a website or purchase something online. At every step of the way, do you provide the easiest and most direct route from Point A to Point B so that they can progress intuitively through your site? If you have a picture of a product, is there a call to action next to it? Remember, too, that a call to action is not a wordy description that says “Hey, this item is on sale like many others, so look at them all blah blah blah.” It’s a concise statement of action – usually in the form of a button or link – that prompts the user to take the next step. Maybe you want them to “buy now” or maybe you want them to “learn more.” Whatever the next logical step might be, it must be clearly stated. Attention spans on the Web are short; if your site is lacking calls to action, chances are good that you’re losing many conversions to the ever-present element of distraction.

2. Put the kibosh on clutter.

The universal rule of the Web is that less is more. Clutter comes in many forms – too many pictures, too much copy, too many buttons and links. Whatever is clogging up your site, get rid of it immediately. In order to determine what should stay and what should go, you must identify the primary goal of your website and make sure everything is geared toward that one singular objective. If your site exists to sell your products, then sell on every page. Even on your “About” page, your customer cares less about where you went to school and more about how your products came to be. You need a clear message – one that’s easy to understand and easy to share. Don’t stuff every last thing you do down someone’s throat and expect them to make a decision. Give them choices, but don’t make them think too much. You’ll only confuse your visitors, and a confused visitor is not going to stick around and figure it out; they’ll just go elsewhere instead.

3. Focus on feelings, not features.

It’s always difficult to fight the temptation to cover every single aspect and feature of your product or service in painstaking detail in order to make sure that visitors have all the information they could possibly need to make a decision. Sometimes this works, but more often than not, it doesn’t. Why? Because people don’t really spend their money on the products that have the most bells and whistles; they spend their money on what makes them feel good on the inside. They buy things they believe will make them a better person or make their lives easier or solve a problem they face every day. People don’t purchase iPods because they like the device itself; they purchase iPods because doing so makes them feel like part of a greater tribe of iPod (and, by extension, Apple) enthusiasts. Features are really only a secondary consideration. In trying to convert potential customers, your most important job is to convey how you can fulfill their deeper needs. Figure out how your products or services connect with people on an emotional level, bottle up that feeling and build your website around it.

4. Don’t ask for too much.

Don’t you hate when you walk into a clothing store and an associate follows you around constantly pestering you with questions? Doesn’t it irk you when you’re ready to check out and they ask you to sign up for their store credit card and their rewards card and to give them your email address so they can put you on their mailing list? Don’t make the same mistakes online. It’s critically important to provide a user experience that makes your visitors feel at ease. Avoid using pop-ups and other disruptive elements that create hassles during the shopping process. And when it’s time to check out, just let them check out. Don’t require them to create an account, don’t make them answer a laundry list of questions about their purchase and don’t make them give you a bunch of personal information. In short, don’t make your customers jump through hoops to spend money with you. If you try to get more information out of your customers than you actually need to process their order, you’ll raise red flags of mistrust. They’ll immediately recognize your game, and they’ll likely jump ship mid-transaction in order to avoid being bombarded with future marketing. In reality, all you need to be able to continue your relationship with that customer is an email address and permission to send them updates from time to time.

5. Be creative within reason.

Of course you want your website to be memorable. You want visitors to be wowed by its design. You want a unique look and feel that sets your company apart from your competitors. All of these are valid goals as long as you keep the level of creativity within reason. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel in an attempt to be remembered for originality and innovation. If your site deviates too far from familiar conventions, you’ll end up alienating a lot of potential customers because they’ll have no idea how to get around and find what they need. Be creative, but don’t overdo it. After all, less is more.

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