If you have yet to hear about this news, it was announced that Apple Rumor site Think Secret will no longer be published but its owner will do college and continue studying journalism. They posted one too many rumors after writing about some real products quite a while before release - so Apple sued. They have now settled, and as with most lawsuits both parties have lost. However, the blogging community as a whole may have gained something from all of this.
Apple
Think Secret has been around forever. Anyone who is an Apple fan has undoubtedly visited it at least once or twice - and it had a pretty good following among techies in general. Many Apple rumors were released to them, which were published, and would be quickly republished on sites like Mac Rumors. Apple has now lost what is essentially a huge fan site, and while it won’t hurt them for a super long time it will hurt them for quite a while.
Think Secret
Well, the closure of a web site is rarely a good thing, especially if it is popular. As I said above, it had a pretty good fan base who will now have to find another site to flock around (most likely Mac Rumors), if they have not done so already. Some may view the closure as being bad for that reason - yet others may see it as being good, since the site’s owner can now do the college and journalism thing. Hopefully the closure of Think Secret will help protect other blogs, websites, and people from being targets of future Apple lawsuits.
What Does It Mean For The Future?
For starters - a result of the lawsuit over the release of the “headless iMac” (Mac Mini) and iWork information is that online journalists are protected the same way as offline journalists - that means bloggers are now a bit safer.
What do you think, was this whole Apple v. Does lawsuit good or bad?
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