Fortune’s ‘21 Dumbest Moments in Business 2008’ (#8 I Am Rich app, #19 Steve Jobs obituary)
Monday, December 29, 2008 - 12:38 PM EST Jobs' 'greatly exaggerated' death"Newspapers prepare obituaries of famous people before they die, but few publish them while the subjects are still alive. In August, Bloomberg News accidentally releases an obit for Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who - despite a well-publicized brush with pancreatic cancer - is still alive and kicking," Michal Lev-Ram writes for Fortune.
"As if that wasn't enough, in October a post on CNN's user-generated site, iReport, claims that Jobs has suffered a heart attack. The erroneous report sends Apple's stock down 10% in just 10 minutes," Lev-Ram writes.
Lev-Ram writes, "At his next media appearance, Jobs appears in front of a giant screen with the message, 'The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.'"
An iPhone app for just $999.99
Lev-Ram asks, "Nobody would pay nearly a thousand bucks for a screen-saver, right?"
"The release of the new Apple iPhone in July introduces to the masses the world of mobile video games and other time-sucking applications designed by non-Apple software developers - most of them available for less than $10," Lev-Ram writes.
Lev-Ram, "But one application sneaks past Apple's gatekeepers and onto the company's new App Store: 'I Am Rich,' a $999.99 screen-saver whose sole feature is a glowing red jewel. Apple gets blasted for making the application available for sale and then quietly removing it, but the real losers? The eight suckers who bought it."
Full article, with 19 other "Dumbest Moments," including "Microsoft overbids for Yahoo," here.


21 Dumbest doesn't include any of the myriad of completely dumb moves made by the government?