I happen to be in Madrid at SAP's Sapphire conference, this morning in a panel discussing blogging and social. The effects of social are profound, so when I saw David Wismer's piece on what the experts are saying about the Apple stock now, I couldn't resist.
David's experts are stock analysts. What they miss is the changing influence of social. Stocks are now traded in an environment where opinion forms and flows in entirely new ways. Anybody looking at Apple's fundamentals would see a good investment. Anybody looking at Apple's deteriorating reputation would worry.
Beginning six months ago, social media coverage of Apple has become increasingly negative, not just the tone but also the volume. The one rational focus in this is product innovation - has Apple peaked as a innovator? Well that happened a long time ago. In fact 18 months ago it was already apparent that people no longer associated Apple as strongly as they did with innovation.
I presented that data here on Forbes. It is drawn from news and social media sources. Surprisingly people were talking up Amazon as they talked down Apple.
Now, if you believe the rationale behind the Forbes list of Most Innovative Companies (read bout it here), that innovators secure a stock premium, then it matters if a stock or brand is associated with innovation or not. That point past a year and a half ago, raising the question of why it took so long to sink in? And what more could we make of social media as a predictive tool?
On the other hand I am not an Apple skeptic. They have $120 billion to spend on innovation. In their shoes I would begin the move away from product dependency and begin looking at big service disruptors like identity management, in effect looking to disrupt today's advertising model by becoming a benevolent customer data manager. People would love them for it.
