Home Is Apple All The Tech Press is Talking About? (Stats)

Is Apple All The Tech Press is Talking About? (Stats)

You may feel like all the tech press has talked about this week is Apple’s new iPhone 4. If you thought that was literally the case, though, you’d be wrong. We did some counting and dividing and looked at the number of headlines containing the words Apple or iPhone across a number of online news outlets this week: Techmeme, Google News, Digg and the finest tech blog in the land, ReadWriteWeb.

Our conclusion? The media is talking about plenty of other things! There were also some surprises in the numbers. We also spoke with Gabe Rivera, founder of tech news blog aggregator Techmeme, whom we caught red-handed being more Apple-centric than any of these other sources. Even his site talks less about Apple than we expected, though.

Above: Our stats for iPhone 4 launch week.

Techmeme

People give machine + human tech blog aggregator Techmeme a hard time all the time about being too fixated on Apple.

Over the last five days (the accessible archives) there have been 260 headlines that hit Techmeme. How many have included the words Apple or iPhone? 55. That’s 21%. General perception among people we asked was that it would be around 35%. So it’s less than we thought! Almost 80% of stories on Techmeme have been about something else!

Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera was surprised the number was that low, but said he believes that much coverage is warranted. “Apple is a more important company now [than it used to be].”

“It’s pushing the all manufacturers to improve their design aesthetics and quality. It’s demonstating to the world how a large company can execute at a high level and iterate nimbly on great products. Apple is at the center of so many important trends. Apple’s rigidness and remorselessness on their iOS platform is also hugely important, and everyone is taking notice: people working inside Apple’s ecosystem, and people working on competing platforms.”

Techmeme is a tech blog aggregator, though. What about general, mainstream news?

Google News

Ever wonder how many stories Google News publishes links to in a week? I don’t know the exact number, but I do know that 1,265,038 of them contained the word “the OR to OR if OR on OR as OR but OR why OR who OR what ” in the headline.

How many search results for Apple OR iPhone in the last week? 75,409 or 6% of all news stories on Google News in the last week. Not just tech stories. I’m surprised the number is that high! Are you?

Digg

Did you know there are less than 200 Google search results across the whole Web for the phrase “Apple fanboys on Digg”? It’s not that big a thing, it turns out. Of the 855 stories that have hit the front page of Digg over this iPhone 4 launch week, a mere 19 of them have had the words Apple or iPhone in the headline. That’s 2%! Less Apple on Digg than on any other source!

I guess now you know where to go if you’re sick of hearing about it.

This Blog: ReadWriteWeb

ReadWriteWeb? We’ve published 131 stories this week and 13 of them have included the word Apple or iPhone in the headline. That’s 10% – and to be fair several other stories had the word FaceTime in the headline.

We’re really excited about the iPhone – what it means, how to jailbreak it, etc. But we’re not as excited about it as Techmeme!

So what do you think – is this an appropriate amount of coverage for the iPhone? Too much? Too little? Less than you thought? More? We know you want to talk about the thing! Let it all out in the comments – you’ll feel better.

About ReadWrite’s Editorial Process

The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

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