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The Great Flattening

Apple’s iPad ad might not have been good for Apple, but it was a profound encapsulation of what has happened on the Internet; the question is what it leads to next.

The ad was released as a part of the company’s iPad event, and was originally scheduled to run on TV; Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice-president of marketing communications, told AdAge: The apology comes across as heartfelt — accentuated by the fact that an Apple executive put his name to it — but I disagree with Myhren: the reason why people reacted so strongly to the ad is that it couldn’t have hit the mark more squarely. Facebook promoted user-generated content to the same level of the hierarchy as articles from professional publications; your feed might have a picture of your niece followed by a link to a deeply-reported investigative report followed by a meme.

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