You know what? I stopped using chat a while back too...and the drop off was sudden enough that a few of my friends called to check in on me and see if everything was ok. You know why I stopped using chat? Because I was busy, and chat is a distraction.
Why all the fucking conspiracy theories? Honestly...the horse is dead already...
Something about this Cringely post leaves me rather nauseous.
Oh, the drama building up over Bob's "grafs"... and thanks to all the "insider info" about Steve's personal chat status... leading into the gradual decay (as Bob paints it) of Steve's ability to use his computer.
And then it's followed by Bob's boilerplate "listen to this post in Bob's sexy, sexy voice."
With friends like this, anyone would do well to become a "control freak."
I understand Apple investors wanting to know more about his condition. If they want to pursue that, I think they're justified. But there's a big difference between spreading gossip and exercising one's shareholder rights.
Yes, Steve Jobs gave up his expectation of the level of privacy you or I enjoy when he became the CEO of a massively successful, publicly traded company. But that doesn't mean that it's right to violate his privacy.
If you are an Apple shareholder trying to exercise your rights, that's fine. But 99% of the stuff written about Jobs' condition feels intrusive, and I would feel uncomfortable writing it myself.
As with most things I read on the net now, I consider it internet gossip until there is confirmation from someone who is an actual authority on the matter.
For all we know (assuming the story is true), Steve has just unplugged to take some time to recover.
I know first hand how quickly internet gossip can get out of hand.
Last year I wrote a blatantly untrue story on a blog I ran during October - it was a message directed at MTV employees who I knew read the blog on an almost hourly basis (I worked this out from grepping the logs and cross referencing that with MTVNE ip ranges).
Within less than a day, this blog post had gone from rumour
To frontpage news on both Yahoo UK and cnet (I only have a screenshot of the Yahoo site) and it was the top story on Yahoo's site for more than 16 hours.
People don't seem to like something about this article, and I can see that - it's not fun to speculate about someone's health when there's a potentially serious illness involved.
But let's turn this around: how would you cover it?
There are billions of dollars riding on Jobs' health, and any news about it.
It's a serious question. His health affects a lot of people, from Apple employees to stockholders, so, like Cringely argues, it is important to more than just him. On the other hand, it's no fun to talk about someone's health. How do you think journalists ought to balance those conflicts?
No coverage at all means rumors are all people have to go on, and when that much money is at stake, act on them they will. Or, as froo mentions above, it's easy to start them - even more so when there is no official news. And with that much money at stake... you get the point.
Also... markets are a fantastic way of organizing things - by letting thousands of people collaborate to create and distribute stuff, they are undoubtedly the best way of organizing an economy. However, that impersonal nature (everyone acting in their own self interest, and in many cases, not even knowing one another), occasionally shows itself, as in this case. As kind humans, our instincts would be to leave the guy alone and wish him well. However, many people have a rational self-interest in knowing about Jobs' health, or, in the case of journalists who are information producers/gatherers, to obtain information that their competition does not have.
It's not speculating about Steve's health that made me dislike the article, but the way it was done. I think it really was about "look here, I have a friend who chats with Steve", and not about caring for the AAPL investors. Those were just lame excuses for gossiping (my impression anyway).
I agree that it's kind of an ugly article. However, all articles about Steve's health, bar a hypothetical one saying he's completely fine and over whatever he has, are going to be a bit distasteful. So the question was - how should Apple, Steve, and various and sundry journalists approach the issue? It's not an easy question.
I guess official statements at timed intervals would do. As for gossip snippets like that, I don't know. Suppose you would be the first to get hold of such information, would you feel a duty to society to publish it? Or is publishing it more of a vulture thing to do?
Would shorting the stock and making a lot of money be a vulture thing to do if you knew he was getting worse? If you knew he was making a full recovery before anyone else did, would buying the stock be a vulture thing to do?
At least if you buy or sell stock, you put yourself on the line. But it is a difficult question. As I said, I guess I didn't really dislike the reporting about Steve Jobs health indicators, as the spirit of it. I don't know enough about philosophy to discern whether that makes for a meaningful distinction.
Why all the fucking conspiracy theories? Honestly...the horse is dead already...