WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Apple’s iPhone outsold all smartphones in the United States in July, its first full month on sale, research group iSuppli said on Tuesday.

ISuppli reiterated its forecast that Apple would sell 4.5 million iPhones this year, rising to more than 30 million in 2011.

The two models of the iPhone sold more than Research in Motion’s Blackberry series, the entire Palm portfolio and any individual smartphone model from Motorola, Nokia or Samsung.

The iPhone will be the bestselling Christmas phone in the country.

Wait and see.

(Picture by Reuters)

Le Tour de France started in London in a big way.

Like Il Giro in Italy, Le Tour de France is a fabulous “brand extension” from newspapers!

Conrad Black goes to jail.

The Daily Telegraph fails to recognize that he saved the paper and The Spectator.

He is not another Robert Maxwell, but has been presented like him.

Wrong.

They were crooks, but at least Lord Black improved his papers.

Journalists must accept the fact.

News Corporation and Dow Jones agree about the sale.

The Bancroft family wanted another buyer but nobody, nobody, offered more than Murdoch.

So, they will sell.

The New York Times is in its new building.

But the financial results are worse than ever.

The Sulzberger family and their (poor) business managers must be accountable for the failure.

The Apple iPhone is a success.

Apple and AT&T sold more than one million sets in the first week.

They could sell more than 10 million sets before the end of the year.

The new Independent on Sunday is doing better than the critics expected.

Well, we were almost alone when all the bloggers were negative.

The new, compact, Sunday news magazine works.

The new ET in Greece confirms its success.

Again, against the conventional view.

INNOVATION was right.

And the ET team did a super job!

In Atlanta, Christian Oliver was INNOVATION’s first consultant to get one!

How was it?

This was his Apple iPhone experience:

I got my iPhone.

Yes, I stood in line but only for an hour.

I must say, even if the phone sucks, I take my hat off to the execution.

I have never seen a better product release in my life and for that matter, never heard of anything like it.

Apple did an incredible job in organizing this.

I arrived to Lenox at 5 p.m. with Vanessa and the line was huge!

I though that maybe they would run out of phones.

Pretty soon Apple people started walking down the line and gently explained how the process would work.

Kudos.

Later on they started distributing water.

More Kudos.

When the store opened at 6 there was a loud cheer from the crowd.

Then the line started moving REALLY FAST.

In less than 15 minutes almost half the queue had gone by.

I entered the Apple store at almost 6:45.

There were Apple staff applauding each group that entered.

You could take all the time you wanted playing with the phones and then go to a second line to buy them.

After buying the phone one could buy the accessories.

They had MANY accessories, including some of the coolest Bluetooth handsfree devices I’ve seen.

I left happy with my bag and even happier with the experience.

I’m a proud shareholder!

At home I opened the iPhone.

Incredible packaging, as usual.

Connected it to iTunes and in less than 10 minutes everything was working and I was making calls with the same number.

NEVER EVER before has buying a phone been such an easy experience.

THIS IS HOW EVERYTHING SHOULD BE DONE.

Any business that achieved this is meant for success.

No more comments.

So… no comments!

The iPhone is here!

Flickr has more than 12,000 pictures of the iPhone mania.

The real thing;

And the crowds:

Pictures from Norfolk, Virginia, at 3 p.m. today.

The Apple store in the MacArthur Center shopping mall is closed.

There were around 60 iPhone fans waiting outside.

If each store has to sell 200 iPhones this weekend…

Wait and see how soon those 200 iPhones are gone here just tonight.

The AT&T store in this mall doesn’t sell the iPhone and the sales force didn’t seem very enthusiastic about the iPhone. They were giving advice to an old lady and the conversation was like this:

“She wants to get one.”

“How old is she?”

“Sixty”

“Don’t buy it.

“Get one of these…”

I asked about the cost of checking emails in Europe: two cents for each kb.

His comments:

“Very expensive.

“And very slow.

“We have better plans here for you.”

So… my guess is that the Appple and AT&T marriage is going to be a rough one.

And tomorrow we will have the queues on the covers.

You will see…

iPhone pictures on Flickr: 9,214 (8:45 a.m., New York time)

UPDATES:

11,881 at 9:30 p.m., NYT, Friday, June 29.

20,241 at 11:30 p.m., NYT, Saturday, June 30.

23,071 at 11:15 p.m., NYT, Sunday, July 1.

The new film and the last Harry Potter book.

The London Times has published what they are calling the first review of the “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” film.

Giving it 3 out of five stars, the review was based on seeing the premiere in Tokyo, Japan.

Amazon calls the new book the one of the “Most Eagerly Awaited Books of All Time.”

What’s next?

Pottermania.

This was the reaction of the market in January 2007 after Apple announced the launch of the iPhone.

They are more astonished than ever.

Words from the CEO of Palm:

“I’ve never seen the kind of feeding frenzy we’ve seen in the media,” Ed Colligan said.

“We expect it to be a very successful product, but I don’t know how it can possibly live up to the hype.”

Read here their first reactions.

In case of doubt, just compare.