Spin me, daddy! Spin me!

This article over on Yahoo! cracks me up. It seems to me Mr. Auchard went to the San Francisco Apple Store with an agenda. His agenda seems to have been to show the world that no one is interested in iPhone.

He quotes five people, who he introduces as a “… handful of opportunists who have camped out until the iPhone goes on sale,” to argue that the people in line aren’t there to actually buy the phone. It turns out, according to him, that these “street-smart capitalists” are there to either buy the phone for resale, sell their places in line, or entertain the crowd (does anyone else feel a sudden light go on with that last one). If they are so “street-smart“, then clearly there is a market for those things.

The fact is that these people he quotes are a handful, in a sea of real customers, that make his point. The last two he quotes, two street performers, utterly destroy his argument in my opinion.

“I saw all these people online, on blogs and on Flickr and stuff, and they all look bored. I said, this is San Francisco, we have to do this right!” says Levkoff, who sports an upturned waxed moustache in the style of Salvador Dali.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t know any buskers or street-performers who camp out in places where they aren’t going to make good money; the more people there are, the better. And with so many people in line, why is it Mr. Auchard only quotes a handful who are there to, in fact, capitalize on the demand.

Nice reporting, Yahoo! No wonder Google is kicking your asses.