Apple iPad Launch, Retail Experience at The Grove
The launch of the Apple iPad is discussed following a visit to The Grove shopping center in Los Angeles. Observations include the presence of tech personalities Robert Scoble and Steve Wozniak in lines, the effectiveness of Apple's "velvet rope" marketing strategy, and the high morale of Apple Store employees during the product debut.
apple· ipad· robert scoble· steve wozniak· the grove· retail· social media
00:01 to be a porn vaccine. In the morning, I'm Adam Curry. Big storms of brewing here in Northern Silicon Valley and there'll be a big storm of brewing on this show! I am John C. Dvorak. It's Crackpot & Buzzkill! In the mornin'! In the mornin' to you sir! Missed my cue again? That's alright...I fumbled through mine Hey, I did- I finally got the jingles running on the iPad
00:50 Oh good. Yeah, it really works well. You said iPad? Do you have an iPad? Yes I do! Did you get in line and stand by Scoble and spend all night? Yay!! You know what it was... It was actually very very strange because I was kind of like planning on waiting a little while and seeing what's going to happen and yeah I always like to see if devices are gonna work or not in the morning it was actually our first anniversary yesterday so we're planning on going to have lunch anyway and I'm looking at... Who's R? Mickey and mine. Well you should be more specific. Yes lightning struck one year ago, when one day now exactly And then you guys met afterwards go on get going Oh wait a minute! You got a little uh... Is that button you pushed on the iPad yeah
01:42 And so I'm watching the TwitLive, because you can't miss it. Everyone's tweeting about it. This is kind of what social media is these days. It's like okay iPad this, iPad that blah blah blah and then I turn on... How relevant? Yeah well although I do want to say something about it. I turn on the live Twitch stream and there's Scoble in line you know then there's Wozniak in another store in line And I get like strangely excited. I'm a 45 year old man! That is terrible... I know, and I'm like okay this is really feeling bad what's up with this? And of course you know I knew that they had done the whole velvet rope strategy I knew there would be plenty of iPads so say you know what make on our way to lunch why don't we just drive by The Grove which is his fabulous shopping center in Los Angeles
02:34 Fabulous. It's really fabulous, no it's great it's pretty awesome actually and if there is no line we can walk right in and go pick one up so you go down there and there are the velvet rope lines apparently they were lines in the morning and there was like two people waiting for the non-reservation lines I said okay this is really against my principles but these 2 people will hop in line took about 5 minutes and we went out and got one The thing that she pointed out, amidst all of the bull crap that we always talk about and all the negative stuff going on in the world. It is kind of nice to see a lot of people in a company actually doing very well being happy about a product they make I have to admit there's something pretty magical about that
03:24 You know, the people who are managing the lines all the way to the people who are selling them. And these aren't like highly paid employees you know they're just people working at the Apple store and at The Grove And everyone's kind of happy and they're applauding their own product. The company is very successful, and these days I think you have to stop and say wow! What are they putting in the water over there? Yeah totally Why are being so negative? No i'm not being negative, I am agreeing with everything that you say You're being kinda snide No. Oh, no! No not at all Hey it's a great device everything I said is true It works for the show and it works for me Yeah everything I said is true Everything I predicted is right Whatever that means Hold on a second We're so on time with todays' show normally you don't hear my Mac farting and everything
