FIVE & THE
DOLLAR WALLFLOWER
The tech press showers virtually all its attention (including scrutiny) on only five companies —Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google—while Microsoft, which is more valuable than all the others, is practically ignored. So just who gets the most attention and from whom? You’ll see.
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Story By ANDREW THOMPSON
Design by CEROS ORIGINALS
LAST YEAR, NEWS OF APPLE'S brief ascent to a market capitalization of $1 trillion was treated by the press with a momentousness usually reserved for lunar landings and declarations of war. And it was notable, if only because $1 trillion was a figure that, until then, had only been achieved by advanced industrial nations, not corporations. But even that historic moment felt like, well, just more shit about Apple. Tech sites are always writing about Apple and its cohorts in the league of FAANG stocks, representing Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet, respectively. It can feel as though they are the only technology companies that exist at all.
And while Mark Zuckerberg has been sweating in front of Congress about how he broke an election and Jeff Bezos has been filming bootleg bum-fights of desperate cities brawling for jobs, Microsoft has been playing it cool and boring in the background. You remember Microsoft, that company whose founder became the richest man in the world by forcing the entire world to use software it hates? Well, most people who own a computer still use its products, and it has quietly become the only company on Earth currently worth $1 trillion. Yeah, it was news to us too. But money can’t buy you love, at least not from the tech press.
PRESS ATTENTION
PRESS ATTENTION
PRESS ATTENTION
MARKET VALUE
MARKET VALUE
MARKET VALUE
Market cap of each brand since Jan 2019
Number of mentions
in tech press since
Jan 2019
OF BEINg
A WALLFLOWER
Who needs press when you’re worth a trillion?
$540B
$857B
$863B
$150B
$781B
$916B
995
1046
949
337
1526
527
No sooner than we sketch out the design for this piece did news break that the phone numbers of 419 million phone numbers of Facebook accounts had been leaked. Meanwhile, Amazon has its sweatshop fulfillment issues, and Google is always batting away the prying eyes of regulators. One struggles to name a recent Microsoft scandal off the top of the head. Techcrunch’s emphasis on news over reviews helps explain with Google was mentioned almost three times more often than Microsoft.
Techcrunch
157
103
89
33
144
59
Netflix, meanwhile, is the only company of the six whose coverage seems to map its size and influence. Perhaps that’s because it has so far avoided ambitions of total world domination and settled for the frontier of everything that was and will be considered TV.
Motherboard
749
1243
970
456
1514
527
Aside from the Xbox, Microsoft has become more like a provider of utilities or appliances than products we willfully choose to place in our lives. And Microsoft seems to have settled into its often mocked role of being just a copycat. While there was a time when that was only partially true, its products are now no longer the leaders in their respective domains. Its office suite competes with Google, its OS with Google and Apple, and its cloud services with pretty much everyone.
The Verge
178
96
137
50
162
38
The relative dismissal of Microsoft might not be entirely misplaced. It’s the biggest company in the world, but it’s no longer steering the ship of the future was it once did. But maybe at this point, it doesn’t have to.
recode
304
246
233
203
95
88
One might also struggle to name a single new Microsoft product. While rumors circulate about how many lenses a new iPhone’s camera will have and keynote events in Cupertino are celebrated like consumer holidays, no one really cares about the next update to Outlook. And updates to the Xbox are spaced so far apart that the rumor mill doesn’t really hum at the same speed.
Wired
540
539
379
134
641
219
Relative to their size, Facebook, Google/Alphabet and Amazon find themselves in the spotlight more than Apple does, particularly on Gizmodo. Apple arguably deserves as much attention for its corporate stewardship as the other three—its manufacturing and “recycling” practices wreak unfathomable environmental depredation, and the factories that churn out its gadgets make Amazon’s notoriously brutal fulfillment centers look like vacationland). But those issues haven’t quite aligned with the political moment as do Facebook, Google and Amazon, all of which feel like content-ready drivers of our dystopian zeitgeist.
Gizmodo
Select a publication to see thIS YEAR'S mentions:
methodology
Data pertains to articles published between January 1, 2019 and July 31, 2019. Terms were searched for as a proportion of all articles per publication, with portions of text indicating improper context (e.g., “download our podcast on Google Play”) removed. Searches for Google include those for parent company Alphabet as well.
$540B
$857B
$863B
$150B
$781B
$916B
995
1046
949
337
1526
527
157
103
89
33
144
59
749
1243
970
456
1514
527
178
96
137
50
162
38
304
246
233
203
95
88
540
539
379
134
641
219
Market cap of each brand since Jan 2019
Number of mentions in tech press since Jan 2019
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are all the targets in a new antitrust investigation. And yet one struggles to name a recent Microsoft scandal off the top of the head. All of which may explain why, in the past year, Techcrunch mentioned Google almost three times as often as Microsoft.
Techcrunch
Netflix, meanwhile, is the only company of the six whose coverage, from Motherboard and others, seems to map its size and influence. Perhaps that’s because it has so far avoided ambitions of total world domination and settled for the frontier of everything that was and will someday be considered TV.
Motherboard
The relative dismissal of Microsoft might not be entirely misplaced. It’s the biggest company in the world, but it’s no longer steering the ship of the future was it once did. But maybe at this point, it doesn’t have to.
Recode
Relative to their size, Facebook, Google/Alphabet and Amazon find themselves in the spotlight more than Apple, as you can see on Gizmodo. Apple arguably deserves as much attention—the factories that churn out its gadgets make Amazon’s notoriously brutal fulfillment centers look like Disneyland and their recycling practices drive environmental degradation. But those issues haven’t quite aligned with the political moment as do Facebook, Google and Amazon, all of which feel like the architects our future dystopia.
gizmodo
Aside from the Xbox, Microsoft has become more like a provider of utilities or appliances than products we willfully choose to place in our lives. And Microsoft seems to have settled into its often mocked role of being just a copycat. While there was a time when that was only partially true, its products are now no longer the leaders in their respective domains. Even their cloud service competes with everyone else’s.
The verge
It’s hard to name a single new Microsoft product. While rumors circulate about how many lenses a new iPhone’s camera will have and keynote events in Cupertino are celebrated like consumer holidays, no one, not even Wired, really cares about the next update to Outlook.
WIRED
OF BEINg
A WALLFLOWER
Who needs press when you’re worth a trillion?
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Data pertains to articles published between January 1, 2019 and July 31, 2019. Terms were searched for as a proportion of all articles per publication, with portions of text indicating improper context (e.g., “download our podcast on Google Play”) removed. Searches for Google include those for parent company Alphabet as well.
Methodology
Story By ceros originals
Design by tri vo
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THE FAANG
TRILLION
THE PERKS
THE FAANG FIVE & THE
PRESS ATTENTION
MARKET VALUE
PRESS ATTENTION
MARKET VALUE
THE PERKS