iPad Media Coverage Outpaces Haitian Earthquake
A study released early Monday by the Center for Speculative Media & Measurement revealed that only 5 days after the official announcement, online media coverage and chatter around Apple’s iPad tablet device has surpassed all media coverage of the January 12th earthquake near the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince. According to the study, 622 million news stories, blog posts, & Twitter feeds flooded the world wide web during the first hour of the iPad news conference in San Francisco, quickly surpassing the number of news reports, text messages and celebrity outcries combined around the Haitian earthquake. ”The instinctive spirit of coming to the aid of our fellow man during a humanitarian crisis is one thing,” said lead researcher Karl Von Schnitzengrubel, “but nothing captures the attention of our collective psyche like the announcement of a highly-anticipated and gratuitously nonessential gadget. The announcement of the iPad is the single-largest collection of media events in modern history around a product that hasn’t even hit the shelves.”
Tags: Apple, Haiti, iPad, media hype, societal priorities