Oct 06

Steve Jobs - Heart Attack?!?

I sometimes sit back and wonder about various "What If" scenarios from different fields, usually about history. Past history, of course, but the most funny and interesting thing to imagine is what would happen if Steve Ballmer would suddenly vanish from Microsoft's helm. I may sound a bit wicked here, but I think the Redmond giant's stock would slowly start climbing, no matter who would take over to replace him. Sure, that won't happen in a real life scenario, especially since uncertain future is a sure bet for sending down stock prices, and even rumors about the death of a CEO can do that, as it happened with Steve Jobs' "heart attack..."

Steve Jobs - heart attack? Why would one launch such a rumor? Well, it seems stock manipulation is a good answer, but nothing is certain yet. Currently, this matter is being investigated, but let's see how did this all happen, shall we?

Friday night(well chosen timing), some individual (anonymous so far - his identity is irrelevant, anyway) decided to start spreading fake rumors that Steve Jobs had a heart attack.

First, he(or she, doesn't really matter, as I said) decided to use CNN's iReport citizen journalism site to publish the "news," and the reason becomes obvious when you look at the headline of the site - "Unedited. Unfiltered. News." One day in the past, someone could try this with Steve Ballmer, just as an experiment, to see what happens with Microsoft's stock...or better NOT!

Next natural step was to use Digg to boost the visits of the page with this not-so-inspired rumor. With a bit of luck, the Digg story got to 4chan, where it got promoted as a prank - but promoted, that's what really matters. The outcome?

Apple's stock has been sent into the abyss, reaching a 52-week low before the Cupertino-based company denial reached media channels, so concerns were raised that someone may be trying to lower the value of Apple stock as much as possible to make some quick cash. Finally, CNN was contacted by the SEC and, according to Associated Press, has promised "to provide information about the posting."

In the end, I guess someone had to win from all this, and he's going to win big time. Probably we won't ever find out who was behind this story, but I won't even think about it. Steve Jobs' heart attack was, fortunately, nothing more but a hoax this time, so move along people - let the Apple grow!