According to Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie, Apple has generated a scant $400 million in free iPhone advertising since its announcement (granted, at least $200 million of that was from Gizmodo alone). He explained:
No other company has ever received that kind of attention for a product launch…It’s unprecedented
I doubt that the iPhone announcement drew society’s attention more than, say, RCA’s first color television or Phillips’ first VCR. But given the greater size and spread of media today, I guess that “unprecedented” is still no exaggeration.
