One of the worldful things about the Apple buzz machine is how it is starting to take on a life of its own.
The NY Times reports today that Apple iPhone users are traveling around the world and incurring HUGE roaming charges for data and voice services.
Turns out… this is not new news.
One could do a simple search & replace on this article, replacing “Apple iPhone” with “Palm Treo”, “Blackberry”, “Nokia” or “Sony Ericsson” and the story would be exactly true, regardless of whether the article was published today… or three years ago. Cell phone companies have been ripping off its customers using these techniques for years. I’ve have to fight providers multiple times, in multiple countries every year… and practically everyone I know has a story (or three.)
I admit I was delighted to see the article. Finally, the cell phone companies being bashed for being the idiots that they are.
BUT, I’ve got to wonder if this has to do with the keyword “iPhone”. I claim that the NY Times can make more money when they write a story with the word “iPhone” – via context based advertising on their own website, making the page more popular in Google’s PageRank, getting more bloggers to comment about it, etc.
Who knows… but if this is true, it would suck. An unintended consequence of a keyword based society and a preview of how the Internet is changing the offline world.
Finding Nilay 