Want Free PR? Head to the iPhone Line
The iPhone line in downtown Palo Alto, Calif. – the heart of the Silicon Valley – isn’t just for people itching to get their hands on the pricey touchscreen gadget slated to go on sale later today. It’s also a magnet for startup CEOs, angel investors and online personalities hoping to hitch a ride on the iPhone Express.
Case in point: SmugMug, a Mountain View, Calif. photo-sharing site that’s been handing out bright red hats with the company’s logo in front of downtown Palo Alto’s Apple store. Last night, the company’s CEO, Don MacAskill, treated the hungry crowd waiting in line to 15 boxes of pizza (and, of course, to stickers with more logos).
Zooomr, another Flickr-like local site, has been streaming the scene outside the Apple store via live video since early yesterday, hoping to direct some of the iPhone attention to its site. There’s also Robert Scoble, a well-known blogger who arrived at the Palo Alto store along with his 13-year-old son at 9:30am Thursday morning, managing to not only be first in line for the iPhone but also first to be interviewed by the press. In a post on his blog filed yesterday afternoon, Scoble wrote that arriving early has “been good for PR.”
It’s no surprise that Silicon Valley startups want to be associated with the iPhone launch. After all, Apple’s cult-like effect on its fans (evidenced by the masses who have camped out outside of the company’s stores nationwide) is exactly the kind of community-like following Web 2.0 ventures need to succeed. That’s why the ones hawking their sites in front of the Apple store are hoping a little bit of the iPhone love rubs off on them too.
And just because they’re standing in line doesn’t mean they can’t get any work done. MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug, has brought six of his developers along with him to the iPhone camp-out. They’re all typing away on their (Apple) laptops, coding while they wait for the $500-$600 handset to make its debut.
Silicon Valley angel investor Jeff Clavier, who promised his wife to bring an iPhone home tonight, also hung out with the Apple crowd, though he wasn’t even planning to get in line until 2pm this afternoon.
But come 2pm, he says, “I’ll take my meetings from the line.”
Welcome to the Silicon Valley.