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The Abandon-Digg weekend is nigh

Tuesday, 26 June 2007 apple digg iphone technology

On June 29th 2007 we are going to witness an explosion of blog entries, digg posts and comments because the heralded iPhone is finally going on sale. Question is, will you brave the chaos or hide from it?

Last September I wrote how Digg went completely nuts for an entire day while every blogger (save me) along with their brother, mother and uncle blogged their little fingers off over the events happening at the conference that was happening back then. 26 promoted stories in 16 hours mentioning Apple stuff.

As foretold by Prophet and Messiah to many, Steve Jobs, the jesusPhone iPhone launches this Friday. Not that we have to for that long, but just imagine what some of the stories coming out of this launch are going to be like… I think we’re going to see 5 main waves of digging going on happening from before the launch until a week or so after the launch:

  1. Queuing
    Fanatics act fanatically. This phase has already started with the first queues making the news already. We’ve seen this sort of mass-hysteria with all sorts of things but they’re usually only focused with this much attention around gaming console releases. I think this could be the first for a phone.

  2. Videos of people buying and unboxing them
    Another classic new-console gag. Everybody wants to show the world what they’re missing out on and nothing shows that better than buying on with a smug look on your face and then unboxing it with the same, albeit slightly more nervously excited smug expression wiped all over your face. If you’re making one of these videos, I hope your iPhone is defective.

  3. First impression posts
    As soon as everybody gets theirs, they’re going to want to be the first people out there complaining about one little thing or commending another. This will probably be the longest phase of the diggathon as hundreds of bloggers get their filthy little mitts on one.

  4. 5 coolest/lamest features of the iPhone
    digg loves lists. digg loves iPhones. Lists about iPhones are going to do extremely well all over digg so I’m positive you’ll see lists showing what people do and don’t like about their new $2,000 (over 2 years) toy.

  5. Contemplation and/or regret
    The sweet realisation that the money you could have used to buy a really big shiny toy is now locked into a little gadget with a very short lifespan. Just as I’m sure there will be plenty of happy people showing off their iPhone, I’m just as sure there will be some of these things hitting ebay.

5 waves but how many posts are we going to get in each one? Hundreds is my guess. We’ve already started seeing threads about the iPhone rates, the queues starting, shipments arriving and bets on people getting trampled.

So, are you going to brave the chaos and watch digg over the weekend or are you going to hide, like me, and wait for the euphoria to pass over and go back on Monday when there’ll hopefully be some cynicism to counter the ever growing cloud of smug?