I just finished watching “Steve Jobs introduce the very first iPod”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIdjdAWbdeU&mode=related&search= five years ago.
There are three amazing things about this video:
1) The historical record is going to be so much richer for future generations, assuming we do a good job of preserving material. Growing up, I watched one of the first “live” wars as we all tuned into CNN to watch the first Gulf War. Now that sort of video material is becoming easily accessible years after the fact via the Internet.
2) Steve Jobs is one of the best people to watch if you want to learn how to do a business presentation. No podium. Simple, visual slides (no text-heavy bullet points). Class assignment: compare and contrast with “Bill Gates’ introduction of the Media PC”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMFYOzg_VWY or “the slides from Microsoft’s introduction of… well, who know”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/niallkennedy/58696064/in/photostream/?
3) Watching the introduction of a cultural icon with the benefit of hindsight is just plain fun. I remember the debates that broke out after the iPod was announced: too expensive, not compelling enough to differentiate from other players, who cares if the Creative MP3 players were CD-sized bricks, etc. At that point we had no idea the extent to which the ideas embodied in the iPod (small, fast transfer with the jukebox software) would change the MP3 industry.
Take a moment and watch history unfold.
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