24/7 Wall St.

Mac360’s Jeffrey Mincey puts his bait where his mouth is.

From “iPhone Fold: Release Date And Specifications“:

Just kidding. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. Nobody, including Apple, knows iPhone Fold’s release date or specifications. That does not stop websites from publishing “Release Date and Specifications” headlines ad nauseam…

• Macworld – New MacBook 2019 release date, price, features & specs
• The Inquirer – iPhone 11 release date, specs and price
• Trusted Reviews – iPhone 11: Price, release date, specs
• iMore – iPhone 11: Release date, specs, price, and features
• Inverse – iPhone 5G: Release Date, Price, and Specs
• Macworld – New iPhone 2019 release date, price & specs

Mincey quotes his colleague Kate MacKenzie, who he says “first identified” the trend in “What I Found By Using An RSS Reader.”

“Regurgitation to the nth degree. Same old, same old, and on different websites, one after the other… same news and rumors are passed off on each website so what you read on one will show up on two, three, six or seven other websites. What you read on 9to5Mac often shows up on Cult of Mac which can be found on Apple Insider, Macworld, TechCrunch, Computerworld, PCMag and PCWorld, Mashable and many others.

“Most of those websites are little more than product shills for various online stores. It’s called affiliate marketing; a growing trend for many websites who cannot make money the old fashioned way (advertising).”

My take: A story as old as the internet. What’s sort of new is that regurgitated Apple headlines, processed by trading algorithms, can have real-world consequences on the Street.