PR Gaffe du Jour
Via MacMinute, we find Real Networks’ new anti-Apple site and an online petition. This is a deeply hypocritical move from a company that has a lengthy history of suckage when it comes to DRM and vendor lock-in. In fact, for the past decade, they’ve been advocates of the very behaviour that they criticize Apple for. The site is pitiful, a desperate tactic given that they lost both the format and portable music wars.
Furthermore, Real Networks is just pitching a different flavour of digital rights management than Apple offers. I see that the site is supported by Devo, voices of the Swiffer–what a coup.
As MacMinute reports, they modified their petition because they were getting too much pro-Apple, anti-Real sentiment:
The company has created a new petition with slightly different wording that does not allow comments — only names and email addresses. RealNetworks is now linking to this document from its anti-Apple site, with no mention of the previous petition. Update #2: Several readers note that Real has disabled the ability to post comments to the “stories” on the above Web site due to a deluge of pro-Apple comments.
Now Apple is by no means a pinnacle of honesty and virtue, but they’re better than most companies and have an extremely loyal cult customer following. Clearly, you’ve got to be way smarter than this if you’re going to attack them on the Web.
jo