We did. A bunch of them.
We (well, our interns) waited on the block-wrapping line outside New York’s Soho store for five hours.
It was like the opening of a trendy new club, but being PYTs got them nowhere. Especially with these doormen….
.
Highly-trained Apple employees, giddy in anticipation of their own (free) iphones, gave out water in the heat. Doors opened at 6pm and we had ours in hand by 6:45.
We weren’t alone. Bloomberg reports that Apple sold 200,000 iPhones on that first day and over 500,000 through the weekend. Most of its 1,800 stores sold out within 24 hours. Analysts estimate sales at 3 million in the second half of 2007 and it is being called a phenomenal WOM success. Truth is, aside from some 11th hour commercials, Apple/AT&T did very little to push the phone. They basically put it out there and let the public evangelize for them. Bloggers built up a groundswell of excitement, which spread rapidly to mainstream media. Apple tapped the Sphere of Influence with tremendous results.
We admit, we were slightly skeptical of a first generation Apple product, but everyone seems to be singing its praises. In fact, we hear our coworker crooning from down the hall… or maybe that’s his iPhone.
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1 » Thursday’s NGT News Roundup » Next Great Thing // Jul 19, 2007 at 9:20 am
[...] Most Hyped 2007: Facebook vs iPhone vs Twitter vs Pownce [Mashable] Mashable takes a look at four of the most talked about tech stories this year – Facebook, Twitter, Pownce (Twitter 2.0), and the iPhone – and analyzes them by traffic, social bookmarks, online predictive markets, and blog hits. Most hyped? Guess…. [...]
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