Will Steve Blog?

Picking up on a comment that I think deserves a bit more discussion:

Chuqui 3.0: Welcome Guardian readers!:

” Don’t expect Steve ever to blog, though.”

Sure about this?

Short answer: yes, sort of.

Here’s the qualification: I don’t believe there’s a chance in hell that Steve will ever blog in an Apple context. Blogging is to — informal — a method of information transfer, and I just don’t believe the way things happen with Steve it’d ever work for him or for Apple. The message Apple sends to the public is carefully orchestrated and managed, and that’s not something than translates well into blogging.

I should also note that I rattled this particular cage a number of times while working there, because I felt — and still believe — that if Steve DID blog, it could have been both a major marketing piece and a significant way for Steve and Apple to inform and shape opinion about many issues, because to put it bluntly, if Steve blogged, every person in the universe would subscribe to it and read it. Talk about a bully pulpit. But it didn’t happen, and I don’t believe it will.

So Steve-as-Apple will never blog, or it’d have happened by now. But we seem to be moving into a transition phase as he and Apple start to diverge; Steve is starting down the path of no longer “being Apple” and as he transitions back to being a private citizen (i.e., no longer having everything he says being welded onto Apple), I could see him turn to blogging and the bully pulpit on issues away from Apple that he feels strongly about. it’s no secret that Steve has a lot of respect for Al Gore and I could easily see Steve follow Al into the new kind of public role Gore has taken on. it’s something Steve simply can’t do while CEO of Apple because people couldn’t separate the roles, but if he chooses to make the transition away from Apple and take up new causes? Then watch out.

And what I know of Steve makes me feel he’ll NEVER retire. he’ll just change challenges. And I know from talking to people who know him that some of the current challenges facing society — that’d be the kind of thing Steve could get into. And if he does, a good way to create a voice for change would be a blog, because we all know that the entire universe would read it and see what he has to say. (and if he needs a webmaster…)

So while I don’t think he’ll NEVER blog, I do believe he’ll never BLOG AS APPLE. Once he transitions out of the CEO role, whenever that happens, all bets are off. I just doubt you’ll ever see Steve in bermuda shorts clamming on the beach, you know what I mean?

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