Proof that Motorola Droid Hype was built by the media

Read this Tech Crunch piece in its entirety.

I walked up the Verizon store no later than 6:20 AM, forty minutes before the 7:00 AM opening time (three hours earlier than usual in light of the big day). But no sooner had I arrived than I began to question my still-groggy mental state. The Verizon sign was directly above my head. There were five or six employees buzzing around the well-lit store, two of whom were decked out in bizarre Droid-branded outfits, complete with black leather vests. But the street could not have been more empty.

The door cracked open. One of the employees, perhaps concerned by my confused expression or excited that someone had actually shown up, had come to talk to me.

A few minutes later I was joined by two new Droid fans. Unfortunately, my excitement over my new friends was rather shortlived — the newcomers turned down my offer of free TechCrunch T-shirts, and informed me that they weren’t actually waiting in line, but had come to witness it for themselves too. As it turned out, they were members of the Android team, who were also apparently let down by the sad turn out.

Droid. Does. Fail.

Update: Some further clarification as to why I posted the above snippet from Tech Crunch. Remember the Palm Pre? Remember how everyone fell in love with it in January, and we all eagerly waited for it to come out? First in the USA on Sprint, then in Germany and the UK on O2. Look where the Palm Pre is now in November. Hell, look where Palm is right now. The amount of attention the Palm Pre received was outstanding, yet how many Palm Pres do you see out in the wild?

There is no doubt that the Droid is an awesome device. Everyone who has reviewed one has said that it’s the best version of Android to date. The camera sucks, but the polished UI, and let us not forget Google Maps Navigation, are compelling enough reasons to say that the Droid is better than the iPhone. But what actually happened? All the press, from hyper enthusiast gadget sites like us, Engadget and Gizmodo, to main stream coverage from places such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, all amounted to nothing.

No big lines, no big parade, nada, zip. Think we’re going to be talking about the Droid in 6 months? No. We’ll be up to our eye balls in Android 2.0 devices, and in 6 months we may even see a new, better, more hyped up version of Android from either HTC or Motorola.

The reason I posted the snippet above was to point out, and make fun of, people who said the Droid was going to change the status quo. Android is still not awesome enough to be accepted by the masses, but it’s getting there.

Update 2: One more thing, how long do you think it will take for Motorola, or Verizon, to issue a press release saying 1 million units have been sold? How many do you think will be sold over the weekend?

Update 3 (Monday morning): Looks like TechCrunch changed their mind, apparently the Droid is selling well. The CTO at Pandora said downloads for his application tripled.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

Justa Notherguy

Wow. Yet another example of award-winning coverage and insightful commentary from the staff of intomobile.

Thanks. Loads. Not.
Stefan Constantinescu

we love you loads and loads ::squeeze hug::
intomobilepov

Looks like you have your agenda and they have theirs! lol.

Media hype is basic marketing strategy. iPhone does it, Droid will too.
123abc

Google Android or whatever mobile OS does not have a cult following like Apple does.

That is the difference. Apple could come out with a brown paper bag full of shite that bursts into flames at the sound of a doorbell and apple fanbois will still line up to buy it.

The lack of turnout doesn’t mean that it’s a fail. Give people some time and if it is a truly great device, word will spread like wildfire.
Kazar

There were at least 20 people lined up before 7am at the verizon store I went to. And the best buy I went to pre-order it at said they ran our of pre-orders. My numbers don’t match yours at all.
Stefan Constantinescu

I hope the weekend numbers get reported on Monday. I’m highly eager to see if the sales matched the hype.
willpark

I was at the same Verizon store that Kincaid visited. No lines, but there were a good number of people in-store.
tyler

I just bought mine in hawaii there were about 30 people in line this morning and tons came in right around after I purchased mine. Wow this phone is far better than my iphone that I just put on ebay
Joel

I was not aware that the amount of people that show up at ONE store determine wether a product fails or not. That’s news to me.
Shea

I too just threw my iphone 3G on ebay. Don’t get me wrong the iphone is king. It sports the same fast processor as the Droid and has many more apps. Now for what it doesn’t have. The iphone still lacks basic multi tasking and support for total customization. It also does not come with a stellar network like Verizon or even free navigation software and for god’s sakes we STILL can’t even reply to an sms without opening the app. In fact, if you wanted something even close to comparable to the free navigation bundled with Android you would be paying $100 for the iphone app then possibly even a monthly fee. The iphone is now going to have to evolve very rapidly in the next 6 months or be left behind. There still is only one single iphone model, and the camera resolution and lack of flash make it look archaic compared to most phones coming out these days. I read somewhere that the lack of lines is actually a really promising sign right now, as Verizon has available models for anyone that wants them. In the NY stores alone Verizon stores were reported to be carrying in excess of 500 droids. These will surely sell out over the weekend and as the hype takes off further it will be known that Verizon now has something very similar to the iphone now in its possession.
Bruce Ross

The Motorola Droid was selling in several places… including Sears, Best Buy.. etc. I think the numbers will be quite good come Monday. Maybe between 4 to 6 hundred thousand. A Chicago Verizon store I visited had 200 phones to start and had less than 70 by 2:00pm Friday. Considering Verizon has about 2100 stores, not including the other vendors, that could put the weekend numbers at between 4 to 6 hundred thousand using some funny math to account for the differences in stores and markets. Hopefully we’ll find out on Monday.
Christophter J

My Best Buy was smart about it…they called everyone that pre-ordered ahead of time and scheduled an appointment to sit down with you and setup your Droid. Far as I’m concerned, this was a better setup than having people form a line/queue outside the store. There was no line (maybe 3-4 people when I got there) because they organized it better. I’d say the lack of a line made getting my Droid a better purchasing experience.
cnote1287

agreed 1000000000%
Chad

Haha. You guys sold your iphone for the droid.

Nerds. The iphone 3gs is the best phone out there. Enjoy your clunky bricks. I heard it says, ‘droid’, everytime you get an e-mail.

What is the killer app? Turn by turn navigation, i will keeo my large screen tom tom. I will use my iphone for what is amazing at.

- surfing the internet.
- fitting in my front shirt pocket.
- everything else.

You sold your iphone on ebay. Too funny
raindog469

I bought a launch-day Pre, was sixth in line at my Sprint store to buy one. I still don’t know anyone else who has one.

On the other hand, I already know more Droid owners than iPhone owners. I’m sure that’s because I have a lot of friends who live in an area where the only coverage is Verizon, but there are a lot of such areas.

There are a number of advantages the Droid has over the Pre. Verizon’s coverage is better than either Sprint’s or AT&T’s. There’s no new iPhone model coming next week, at least that we know of. And unlike WebOS (or the iPhone OS at its launch) Android is at 2.0 already, and well on its way to being a mature development platform. The whole T-Mobile thing was like one big beta test for Google. I don’t think it’ll come close to killing the iPhone, but unlike the Pre, it may cannibalize a few percentage points of market share from it and from Blackberry and Symbian.
Steven Hoober

> how many Palm Pres do you see out in the wild?

Quite a few. One example: I was speaking just the other day to a group of designers about mobile, and reminded them all (presuming they are all iPhone users) that not everyone else is. Not true. Two Pre users in the audience, and numerous other devices.

The media hype engine is geared towards iPhone. Entirely. Such that it’s becoming Kleenex, and “iPhone” in news tech reporting means “smartphone” more than it means Apple iPhone specifically.

You, and your cronies at this blog, are severely part of this. We need a post for every piece of software (or hardware accessory) for the iPhone?
Drew

Ha ha ha…. he said “fitting in my front shirt pocket”. Talk about a dweeb, do they still make shirts with front shirt pockets?? Oh, but you’re definitely cool because you have an iPhone, right?? Yeah, and that “great at everything else” comment is a stretch indeed. I think you named ALL the iPhone is good for…surfing the Internet. It’s not good at actually using the phone to call, or getting your push email or multi-tasking which is what a real “smartphone” can do. So, thank YOU for your insight.

They sold their phones to some other schmucks that wanna “look cool” in place of a phone that not only will do circles around yours but eventually put your Tom Tom out of business. No geek is gonna walk around with two devices when you can have the same thing on their phones. Well, all except you…
Mike

The Droid’s success will not be based on opening weekend sales stats but rather on the sales over the next few months. Most people don’t believe the media hype over phones anymore, because every other phone is hyped as being amazing by media. When people start actually seeing their friends with the phone and seeing how good it actually is the sales will be amazing.

I typed this on my brother-in-laws Droid which he bought based on my recommendation. He loves it and is telling all his friends how sweet it is. When you actually are dealing with a great product, social networking can be a very powerful thing.
FJ

According to your reasoning, naive Apple fanboys would also form long lines in front of Apple stores when new Macs and iPods are released, right? But lines for these products don’t form; not even for the iPod Touch. So that obliterates your attempt at apologizing for the Droid not having the same “queue forming power” as the iPhone.
Chad

Drew, you are amusing. I am a business professional and most nice dress shirts have shirt pockets. My push e-mail works perfect, my phone multi-tasks just fine and surfing the Internet is the single most important advantage for a smart phone.

Your Droid phone is a brick.
Ryan

IPhone CAN’T Multitask, and it CANNNOT run services. Basically Garbage.
Tom Robson

Nobody can generate the kind of semi-religious following that Apple can, so the fact that the launch of great non Apple phones doesn’t have lines of salivating disciples should come as no surprise.

What Motorola need to do now is get the Droid/Milestone out in as many markets as possible (the UK would be a good start please!) and back it up with updates to fix any bugs or problems (like the camera focus / quality). Rome wasn’t built in a day, but with good reviews, good word of mouth and a company that’s prepared to stand behind it, the Droid will do very well indeed.
Indee

Deleted the comment because you know it’s true, you should before everyone else finds out you’re a sham.