Scott Noteboom, formerly vice-president of data centre engineering and operations at Yahoo, now lists his occupation as “distinguished gentleman” at Apple on his LinkedIn biography.

The updated biography has caused a flurry in the web hosting industry and in the industry press.

Apple has instigated a lot of activity in the data centre space this year. This activity includes the building of its new $1bn, 500,000 square foot data centre operations hub in North Carolina, USA, and the start of its iCloud file storage cloud.

Noteboom worked at Yahoo from 2005, during which time he launched a number of data centre initiatives. Before this, he worked as senior director of data centre operations at data centre company AboveNet.  The company had the second-largest data centre collocation footprint in the world at the time, according to Noteboom’s LinkedIn profile.

The news will come as a surprise to many, not least because Apple made its last data centre hire quite recently. It poached Kevin Timmons from his role as head of Microsoft’s data centre in April. Timmons is now reported to have moved on to US data storage company CyrusOne.

In our training workshops we quote a misconception about social media. “A lot of people think it’s another channel for marketing. It isn’t”. And then we explain the importance of “a conversation” and a fundamental shift in the way you interact with customers and get your message across.

It strikes me that as soon as you think of social media as a form of marketing, you’re doing it wrong. Social media at its best is an attitude, an ethos, a way of life right through the core of the company – like the writing through a stick of rock, where you’re engaging with your customers on instinct.

Of course, you have aims and objectives. But good social media keeps these hidden. The consumer should never be able to see your intentions, your marketing fingerprints shouldn’t be visible.

Apple is a great example. They opened a new store at Braehead recently. Most companies would have promoted this heavily and discounted on price. They didn’t. I received an e-mail from Apple telling me the store was opening. The mainstream media covered this. On the day Apple employees at the store held a ceilidh in full view of everyone before the doors opened.

What did they do on social media?

Nothing.

What did the crowds who turned up do on social media?

Everything. They wrote blogs, tweeted, shared pictures and video and discussed the whole experience.

It strikes me that most businesses’ marketing objectives for the opening of a new store would look like this…

i) Get the person to come to the store

ii) Get them to buy something

I reckon Apple’s objective would have been something like this…

i) Get the person to tell someone else about the store opening

Who’s doing the better job of marketing?

Even if the traditional company achieves big footfall and shifts products..at what cost has this been achieved? There’s the costs of the campaign leading up to launch, then the cost of discounting.

The Apple approach doesn’t cost anything. It gets more people into the store and more people paying full price for the products.

The ceilidh and chanting the Apple employees took part in before the opening of their Braehead store wasn’t the intense “team bonding” session I originally through it was. Instead, it’s extremely subtle marketing. It’s not about what they’re doing..it’s carefully designed to make me, as a consumer do something for them. In this case, the blog I wrote and the video I shot of all the staff coming out to meet the customers.

It’s me telling other people about the store opening via social media and I was convinced I was doing this because I wanted to.

Now I realise Apple made me want to.

And I’ve got another piece of insight because of my role as Gadget Guru on STV’s “The Hour”. We’d contacted Apple’s PR team several times over the years asking for product demos we could use on the show – iPods, iPhones, iPads etc. They never played ball. I thought maybe our show wasn’t big enough for them but it turns out they hardly ever let anyone preview their products. I thought they’d forgotten all about us but just before the Apple store opened at Braehead I received an e-mail from their PR team.

Would the STV cameras like to attend the opening of the new store “and speak to the crowds who’ve turned out about why they’ve queued through the night and how excited they are”?

Doesn’t that speak volumes about this company’s approach?! Anyone else would have promised behind the scenes access, an interview with the management, maybe even an exclusive free gift. Not Apple. All they’ll do is let the media speak to some of their biggest fans! And although STV stayed away on the day, several other outlets did turn up and that’s exactly the coverage they got.

Fascinating.

No other business is like Apple. But we can learn from them. And this demonstrates that if a business has got things right at its core, then they’ll have success on social media without typing a single word.

An American company called iCloud Communications, LLC filed a lawsuit this week in the US District Court of Arizona, claiming trademark infringements against Apple.

The company claims that Apple’s choice to use and promoted the name iCloud is detrimental to its business, removing the branding from it and placing it almost entirely onto Apple.

The lawsuit also alleges that Apple’s services are identical to those being offered by iCloud Communications.

Although the legal papers – which can be viewed on various sites around the internet – do not request a specific amount of money, the lawsuit does ask for “all profits, gains and advantages” along with “all monetary damages sustained”.

The lawsuit also asks Apple to stop using the iCloud name to “deliver for destruction all labels, signs, prints, insignia, letterhead, brochures, business cards, invoices and any other written or recorded material” with the iCloud name.

This is not the first time that Apple has come under fire in the law courts regarding a trademark issue. In fact, this lawsuit alludes to that too, mentioning that Apple has been “wilful” in trademark infringement in the past, citing The Beatles, McIntosh Labs stereo equipment and the cartoon character Mighty Mouse as those who have had an issue with the technology giant.

Apple’s representatives have yet to comment on the issue.

According to wide-spread rumours in the blogosphere, Apple has filed a patent for its web design tool, iWeb, especially for the iPad.

This would make it the latest in a long line of well-loved Mac applications to feature on the iPad, with Garageband, iMovie and Photobooth already proving popular amongst owners of the iPad.

Website designers hoping to showcase their skills on the iPad may have a long wait ahead of them before the app is launched, however. Apple is still to announce exactly when iWeb for iPad will be ready for market, in the same way it chose not to give launch dates for other sought-after iPad versions of Mac apps at the iPad 2 US launch in New York on March 11th.

Whatever the release date, the move is good news for web designers wanting more flexibility. Working on the move is both easy and efficient thanks to the iPad and it’s great to think that web designers may soon be able to benefit from this as well.

Could this spell the start of a move towards iPads over laptops and desktops for web designers?

Ok – being honest, I did actually plan to do these things at some point, but the Apple Store (and it’s brilliant staff) have a habit of encouraging you into these things..  that and the products are so seductively sexy you just need to have them.  There was also another very good reason for me simply having to upgrade my iPhone 3G to iPhone 4 – my wife got one before me, and being the true geek in the family I couldn’t be outdone for too long

So… here’s just a very short review of both these new toys:

Apple TV

The new Apple TV is tiny, and the box it comes in is tiny, and (having played with the old Apple TV) you can’t not be impressed by how tiny (and sleek) it really is.  That is until you realise that the tiny box doesn’t contain an HDMI cable to plug the thing into the telly!  Bit of a failure on Apple’s part to not make this clearer on the box, or for them not to mention this when selling it to me…  However, a quick steal from the SKY HD Box, and it was up and running.  Configuration was easy, and now have all my music, films, podcasts etc all streaming to the HD TV in the living room.  Add to that the “Remote” app that allows you to control the appleTV (and Itunes on your computer) and it all works very well indeed!

Apple iPhone 4

Not that I really needed the new iPhone (my iPhone 3G has been doing me just fine), but my reasoning behind buying it was as follows:

1. I was out of contract (with O2) so I *could* upgrade
2. I was nearly using up all my 16GB storage on current phone
3. My wife got one last week and that annoyed me

The truth is – other than it being far prettier than the old one, the new apple iPhone isn’t a massive improvment in my opinion.  Yes, it’s got new things like “facetime” (apple’s version of skype video), and includes a little compass so I know which direction I’m going in, as well as a much improved camera and new video camera (HD quality)..  but apart from that – if you’ve already updated your software to V4 on the older 3G (or 3GS), then there’s not a great deal to benefit from.  The battery (not that I’ve had time yet to fully test this) is supposedly a lot better (which wouldn’t be difficult!) which will be a bonus!

Did I really need to upgrade, probably not, do I regret paying £299 – no, especially when I’ll sell my existing iPhone 3G for approx £160.  Have I restored my position of King-Geek in my household..  (was there ever any chance of losing it?)….  Now who want’s facetime!

This frenzy has peaked despite the swift emergence of an annoying, and rather basic, design flaw. When held in a certain way, the iPhone4 loses signal and drops calls. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has openly admitted the fault and the company is working to create a band which will help prevent the problem.

The issue has arose due to the steel band casing of the iPhone4, which also acts as its antenna, making it more susceptible to drop outs when the phone is held in a certain way. It’s an unusual episode for Apple, whose signature is usually impeccable, functional design, but a speedy response from the behemoth, including the personal interest taken by CEO Steve Jobs means it has done very little to dent the ever growing popularity of the i-brand.

Of course its ongoing popularity is possibly also a result of almost unanimously positive reviews; according to those lucky enough to get one the iPhone4’s new design marks a departure for Apple that results in a practical design that captures a luxury feel. It also has image, hardware and battery life improvements galore, making the new iPhone one to get excited about while opening up a whole world of possibilities for social media and apps that will also internet designers to have some fun with their digital mobile marketing.

Unlike iTunes, the majority of singles are 20p cheaper at 59p, with full Albums from £3.00, and more importantly – the big selling point from Amazon is that all downloads are DRM Free.  Until recently, the Amazon service was only available in the US, and for a while there was some serious doubt if the UK and Europe would ever see it (DRM arguments with record lables etc).  Follow this link for a more detailed explanation of DRM and the implications of removing it, but in short – it’s a good thing for consumers, and one that should see Amazon make a big dent in the profits of Apple iTunes.

Finally…  just a wee reminder to regular NSDesign Blog readers, that if you’re a fan of the latest gadgets etc, then get yourself 10% of any sale at www.iwoot.com by using the promo code nsdesign at checkout.

Using an adapted version of Safari, browsing websites is intuitive and on the whole fairly easy.  It’s instantly obvious that some websites “work” better than others, and it’s fair to say that websites built to standards (xhtml, css and semantic markup) perform better than the usual (non-accessible) tables-based layout sites. 

We’re really quite excited about this, and will be doing some more research in the new year to identify the “best practice” for optimising a website for the touch, and of course the iPhone.  With some clever browser detection and customised CSS, it should be possible to get any website (especially the ones we develop!) to format perfectly for the smaller ipod screen, with a few automatic extras to make browsing that bit easier…  watch this space!!