“iPocalypse” now: The perils of event marketing
The upside of simultaneously launching four major products — the iPhone 3G, the App Store, iPhone firmware 2.0 and MobileMe — in more than 20 countries around the world is that you get people’s attention.
That’s not an easy thing to do in this media-saturated age.
The downside of this form of event marketing — which Steve Jobs pioneered — is that you risk blowing it on a really big stage, in this case by overloading your servers and triggering a global customer satisfaction meltdown.
That’s what happened to Apple (AAPL) on Friday. Too many of the iPhone’s six-million existing customers tried to upgrade to the new firmware just as hundreds of thousand of new iPhone 3G customers were trying to activate their phones on the same iTunes servers.
Complicating matters were spot breakdowns in credit card readers, EasyPay PCs, and the AT&T (T) activation system that failed last year. (AT&T, as Fortune.com reported, was quick to blame this year’s problems on Apple.)
The result was a rolling meltdown across the Earth’s timezones that Gizmodo dubbed the iPocalypse — a coinage that quickly spread (see, for example, the New York Times and All Things Digital.)
[CORRECTION: Credit may actually belong to a Gizmodo reader -- one brianhatch -- who wrote "my god, it's the iPocalypse" in a comment date-stamped Friday, 10:09 a.m. EDT.]
Suffering the most were the hundreds of people who had queued up outside Apple Stores — in some cases for as long as a week. Last year the lines moved quickly because the phones could be purchased with the swipe of a credit card and activated at home. This year’s purchase procedure, already complicated by the requirement that customers sign an extended contract with a carrier before leaving the store, bogged down entirely. Progress at the back of the lines slowed to a glacial pace.
The iTunes servers came back up late Friday and by Saturday morning the activation problems were mostly resolved.
But MobileMe, the new basket of Web applications that Apple had promised to have running Wednesday night, was still not working. Visitors trying to use the service got instead this error message (in four languages):
The MobileMe transition is underway but is taking longer than expected. While core services such as desktop mail, iDisk and sync are available, the new MobileMe web applications are not yet online. Thank you for your patience as we complete the upgrade.
For a first-hand account of our descent into activation hell, see Live! From the Fifth Ave. iPhone line.
UPDATE: As several readers have noted, MobileMe works if you go to http://www.me.com. Inexplicably, the mac.com address still produces that four-language error message.
UPDATE 2: Midafternoon Saturday: received an automated message from Apple that MobileMe is working now.
mobileME has not been working. Not with iWeb and not with, at this point, Tiger – despite promises to the contrary. I’m not sure why Apple thinks they can pull this over on everyone but many of us are still offline and angry. I run two web sites and one of them is comment based (a blog site). Comments still don’t work through iWeb and publishing still produces errors. I can get some content to update but not smoothly.
I’ve been reporting on it over at CNN’s iReport feature and constantly bugging Mac with little to no success.
ex ped: So I’ve noticed. I’ve been trying to switch to a family account for three days and the upgrade button still doesn’t work. When I go to discussion boards at Apple.com/Support to see how widespread the problem might be, I see that they are out of service with a “We’ll be back soon” soon sign in their place. How long has that been going on, I wonder?
Anyone who doesn’t get that there is actually hugely beneficial social proof in the “the mass onslaught melted the servers” episode, doesn’t understand marketing principles.
Reports are in that Apple sold 1 Million phones in 3 days… proof that this sort of thing works very well.
Read more on Apple marketing here:
http://businessmindhacks.com/post/what-the-iphone-has-to-do-with-the-magician
You can look at this in another way. The problems actually generated much more free marketing for iphone then if the whole think has gone smoothly. Some marketers may say there is no things as bad publicity and is better then no coverage at all. It seems that most of the problems of the launch will work itself out within a week so the damage to Apple will be minimal and next week there will be more free marketing when the news of the problems are solve. So if you look at it this way the launch failure is not necessary a bad thing especially all media is looking for Apple to fail anyway and the public will quickly forgot all the problem yet iphone will be in many more peoples thoughts. Sometime you need to throw the media a bone and give a chance to bash Apple or it is no news as it is no fun to always give praise. Eleven years ago when Hong Kong was return to China, the world media swamp Hong Kong waiting for the hammer to fall as the army comes in and arrest everyone who is critical of China and take away all the peoples freedom. When that didn’t happen it quickly become a non event and the media spend the next ten years bashing Hong Kong and even make up stories as a revenge for wasting their time. So by having a failure on the iphone launch all the pend up frustration to bash Apple by the media has been release, by next week they will be back to praising Apple and iphone will go on and sell millions of them.
Week later no one will remember “iPocalypse”. I will give it to Apple, it takes “balz” to do product launch like that. This is just a rehearsal for rollout of future products.
I am certain the folks on here who are saying RIM would be happy to have such problems arent trying to implay the Iphone glitches are because the demand for the device is so much higher?!? I would suggest you look at the number of subscribers…RIM just doesnt attempt to do everyting on one day.
While the iPhone is an impressive cell phone, it does not warrant switching to AT&T. AT&T doesn’t have the greatest coverage, and plus, I don’t want to have to wait a gazillion hours in line just to get the darn thing only to experience issues with it! I’m happy with Verizon Wireless and my LG Dare for all I care! :)
I am clearly prefer Apple products, and detest Microsoft as the borderline criminal, unethical monopoly, producing mostly inferior products that it is. Having said that, the element of cultism in the minds of some Apple fans leaves me perplexed and a bit uneasy. Waiting in line for a week for a revised edtion of a year old product? ????!!
As to “iPocalypse” . . .Media Hype! The 3G launch was a hugely ambitious, and the fact there were glitches is hardly a surpise. In a few days or weeks all will be well.
read about the iphone launch on my Nokia N800 internet tablet whilst surfing the net for free. Free voip, free video calling, free surfing, free email, free software and free upgrades. Buy one, buy a fonero, share the net and smile
In a similar story, thousands of 2 year olds are crying today because they didn’t get a cookie.
Where’s the outrage?
I use a $29 and i just got back from cruise. That’s right! There’s more to life than a phone!
Apple 3G? No, thanks. My Motorola Razr still works and doesn’t cost me one penny more.
All I can say to all this is that you Americans are so infatuated now with instant gratification that it overwhelms any common sense your society ever hard. Shut up, quite your whining, wait ’till Monday and your phone will work.
All the great designers & developers are control freaks…
Unfortunately most of them don’t realize their so called genius doesn’t lend itself to trying to control actual living beings with a will of their own…
City people are funny…waiting in line for a week for a damn phone. There’s more to life than phones folks…I don’t care what they do. Morons.
Scott Forstall should apologize?
Are you kidding? He’s in charge of the iPhone, which works quite well once it is activated.
This is all on Steve Jobs, no one else.
Only Jobs would stamp his foot and demand all of this launch simultaneously. He screwed up and took about a billion in goodwill off the table. The shareholders should appoint a friggin chaperone!!!
Sooo… faulty productlaunches are NOT just a Microsoft/PC problem!
Good gracious, this is one heck of a lot of blah, blah, blah, and more blah! As has been said many times before, sitting on on line for a mobile phone is, well, stupid. Second, if you feel compelled to whine at an ultra high decibel level over waiting another three hours for the phone to actually work, then you should immediately seek professional help. Finally, the insanely sensationalistic term “iPocalypse” coined by Gizmodo, and repeated by Apple 2.0 is further proof of just how silly this whole episode has become.
Folks, wait a few days, go get your iPhone 3G, and stop with the dramatics!
have you seen what these are going for on eBay???!!!!
check these out::
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=330252207417
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=330252324350
It took about 20 minutes to update iTunes and then my new software for the iPhone. What a dream. As far as new customers – it’s like any struggle: once you start using your new machine – you’ll forget everything else. ENJOY!
Have you seen what these things are selling for on eBay now?!!! Over $1000.00.
Here’s an example: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=330252207417
unbelieveable!
–www.GiftedTouch.com
outdated news.. please delete :-) hehehe mobile me is working http://www.apple.com/mobileme/
I had no problem at all updating to iPhone 2.0. First I updated iTunes to 7.7 then I hooked up my iPhone and it downloaded iPhone 2.0. Took about an hour. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about?
C’mon, no one is surprised by any of this, right? I’d never be the first one in line for anything new and I certainly am never the first to download an upgrade. More power to the brave ones who do but they must know what to expect by now.
Funny!
Ha! All you gotta have first techno freaks just got bit AGAIN.
The poor and un-iphoned (and the cautious hackers) laugh in your direction.
Still, i would be curious to know how the meeting between Scott Forstall and Jobsie went down. The golden boy has made everyone at Apple look bad.
In Japan he would take his own life to expunge the corporate shame.
Why not some comments from people who were “suffering” in the line moving at a “glacial” pace? (Did they think they wouldn’t be waiting hours?) And, why not some thoughts on if those buying the phone felt the wait and the glitches were worth it? You have your idea of the story and twist your “facts(?)” to support it. Shouldn’t the real story be that hundreds of thousands of people, around the world, waited in lines for hours to buy a new phone? Why would they do that? Would this happen with any other new cell phone? Or any other product, for that matter?
And now you’re editing which comments go up.
So much for a conversation with your readers.
Why even have comments?
Why not just leave a bunch of “PED is awesome!!!” comments yourself?
Or create your own wikipedia article?
Oh, wait, you already did that.
ex ped: Who’s editing your comments? Chill.
Yeah, 6 paragraphs down.
And it appears on all the news aggregators like PED came up with iPocalypse.
Your journalistic headline-making kung-fu is disappointing.
ex ped: Gizmodo didn’t come up with the headline either. You have to get to the very bottom of Mark Wilson’s piece to learn that it came from reader brianhatch.
You stole your headline?
Seriously?
Who Jacks ‘iPocalypse’?
ex ped: Hey, Giz got credit and a link! That’s flattery, not theft.
Apple getting in the 2.0 ! or how to give lessons on mobile marketing and take the social networking trend to boost the sales.
It’s now the second time Apple innovate with iPod (material) and Ipod Apple Store (ecommerce), what will be the next step ?
The issues were even more compounded in Canada, where Rogers’ own customer database crashed as well, meaning not only could phones not be activated (as was the case everywhere else thanks to Apple’s iTunes woes), but phone’s couldn’t even be removed from their shrink wrap because the IMEI’s could not be turned on without use of the Roger’s SalesCentral DB.
I spent the day yesterday running around Ottawa guaging the launch and it was utter chaos to say the least.
You can read my account here if you like- Failure to Launch: Rogers Botches the Iphone Debut.
Cheers,
Daniel Smith
Smithereens Blog
P.S. Typo in my previous INCOGNITO, NYC, EARTH Comment — INSTANT ON
And yes, I totally agree:
RIMM, VERIZON, MSFT, NOKIA — ANYONE WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE HAD APPLE’S PROBLEM — SOLD OUT, INSANE DEMAND, GLITCH FIXED IN 1 DAY! EVEN 2-3-4 DAYS!
Go for a walk, or watch a movie, or give your dog an extra walk:), or wife and extra kiss…
OK:)?!
All this will be SMALL when you sit with your iPhone on a nice day somewhere, and have the WORLD in your hands!
Peace to all!
Yep, a Glitch… But every other company would have been ecstatic to have such Glitch. The Glitch will be resolved quickly, unlike the Glitch called Windows OS, that the world has accepted as NORM!
What Apple did was unprecedented, and there is no REHEARSAL for that scale of production! If others could have done, they would have done it!
Monday Night Quarter Backing:
MAYBE they could have had the iPhone 2.0 Update available prior to 7/11/08, instead of all on one day! We all can come up with lots of MAYBE’s, but we don’t know what APPLE KNOWS, and thus, throwing stones is unfair, I think…
Apple had a long streak of almost No Hitters/Perfect Games (to borrow from baseball)… Let the new streak begin!
Having learned from this GLITCH, Apple, by having pushed this envelope, will break away from all its competitors even further!
The Apple Haters will try to dance about this, but when iPone/Me.com Paradigm will quickly settle into the groove:), they competitors will still be left with JOKES-iPhone Wanna Be’s “Killers”…
I stopped by Verizon on 7/11/08, and tried Dare! How Dare they put such garbage on the store shelves! A block away, with all the Glitch Chaos, ATT Store was ALL SOLD OUT!
RIM/BLACKBERRIES were down for 1-3? Days not too long ago, and I don’t think anyone died? Same with this ROLL OUT — NOBODY DIED! People just had to take a deep breath, and come back later — a few hours, or a day MAYBE!
There was NOW PUSH BUTTON INSANT ON for:
Columbus discovering America (or whomever did)!
Ships becoming Cruise Lines
Airplanes becoming Airlines
Moon Landing
Running Messengers becoming Instant Messages
Cave Art becoming Artwork on iTunes:)!
So, a few hours is not so bad!
If people lost data — good! Why? Cause EVERYONE SHOULD BACK UP DAILY!
Glitch?!
Have you tried Palm Treo’s? Have you tried Tethering through them from your Laptop, just like it said on its Retail Box? And that was through Verizon, which claims a great, fast Network! BS!!!!!!!!!! Drop Calls, No Signal in NYC, not Sahara! So, let’s not dump on ATT being the root of all evil!
Have you tried Palm OS, and it’s Crashes, or 15 Categories Limit, and ANYONE making Applications that would bring down the entire Palm OS Device, and then GOOD LUCK getting anyone on the phone, and when you do, they teach you how to play Software Incompatibility Detective Troubleshooting, to see which Application caused the crash! Reinstalls that took HOURS!
Glitch?!
Hey, it’s not like EVERY MAC INSTANTLY DIED AND BLEW UP, SETTING EVERYONE’S HOME ON FIRE! So, let’s not SCREAM FIRE, just cause the MILLIONS of NEW CARS didn’t start on the 1st Turn Of Ignition Key, in Sync ALL AT THE SAME TIME, WORLDWIDE!
Glitches happen, even to Apple! NOBODY IS PERFECT!
Asking Columbus to Discover America INSTANTLY, with 3G and WiFi and Downloadable Snacks on every corner — that’s a tall order even for Apple!
But, speaking of Take Out:) —
Can’t wait for Copy and Past and Memo/Notes 2 Way Syncing on iPhone
what a problem to have ah? Apple goes over 200 this month on its way to 300.
PED – MobileMe has been up since 9AM yesterday (albeit a little slow).
It is now up and moving quickly too.
You are probably using the old mac.com address, which is not redirecting (inexplicably) at this time. You have to login directly right now to me.com or mobileme.com. Its a really nice set of web apps. The backend was up Thursday night (iDisk, syncing, etc.).
Totally agree that it was idiotic to try and do all this at once – tempting Murphy’s Law is never a smart business decision, and just plain egotistical.
RIMM WOULD BE HAPPY To have these issues, believe me.
MobileMe has been working since Friday. Don’t try to go from your DotMac link, JUST TYPE ME.COM to get to log-on screen.
- Antitrust: Apple and AT&T in DOJ’s sights
- Analyst: China Mobile still an iPhone contender
- NY Times: Fixation on Steve Jobs’ illness ‘unhealthy’
- Survey: The iPhone is No. 1 in Japan – Updated
- How many new iPhones did AT&T sell?
- The iPhone App Store takes a bad turn
- A fireside chat with Apple’s Jonathan Ive
- Morgan Stanley: Mac shipments on the rise
- Video: The last time Steve Jobs came back to Apple
- Nielsen: Apple is tops for hardware buzz
- let me get this straight. you quote a... More
- Personally, I love the iPhone, but I ... More
- To the comment about "other countries... More
- PED: You said, "Heading the list at N... More
- Of the 373 million Japanese living in... More
- "Some website X reports they read on ... More
- carol wrote: "If it takes you 6 mos t... More
- To the guy pumping the Nokia N97; the... More
- Those that think Nokia is even in the... More
- > This update has five new t... More
Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
I don’t care that the bad press might work in Apple’s favor by extending the marketing campaign. What I care about is that as aonsumer, one week after MobileMe launch, we still don’t have a consistent working application. We are in a technological age where email is required to be accessible all the time from everywhere. Apple did not ensure stability or at least failed at it on the most important functionality of a computer or smartphone.