Wow, Steve Jobs' memo on music sure did stir things up yesterday. Setting aside the content for just a minute, let's take a look at the way Apple chose to communicate on this issue. Dave Winer notices that Apple usually goes direct to one publication when it has major news to make, and wonder why not this time. Dave has a point -- Apple under Steve has always had a flair for the big photo pop in conjunction with news, usually via an exclusive. But in their last two big communications (music and the iPhone), they've not gone this route -- why?
I think there are two things. First, much of Apple PR is driven by Steve Jobs -- he is the face and voice of the company in a hugely singular way. Think about a piece of Apple news where he wasn't front and center. Can't think of one? Neither can I. This is generally a big asset for Apple, but now that Steve is a bit under the cloud of the options scandal, his reality distortion field has shorted out. So it's not as safe for him to go 1:1 with a reporter or publication and count on a clean news hit as it has been in the past. Second, the nature of the news media is changing, and the ability of companies to go directly to the general population (or at least the technically literate population) has changed. Look at the top entries on techmeme on any given day, and you'll often see a company w/ news at the top of the heap as a link source. So *if* a company is a trusted brand, and *if* it has something interesting to say, then going direct can be a very effective communications strategy.
On the flip side, this really isn't new, so it's important not to make a revolution when there's only evolution going on. The ability to drive conversation with a big idea has been around since, well, forever. The hard part is often less about how to *communicate* a big idea, but how to come up with it in the first place.