Not since Y2K have so many news outlets invested so much effort to scare the public for little or no reason at all. Even 60 minutes got involved with a scary story hyping the perceived threat.
Take a look at this Google Trends graph for the word "conficker" you'll see that the media really started pushing the story in late March... it indicates the number of news stories mentioning the word "conficker". Clearly, the media started pushing this story hard, despite the obvious evidence indicating that conficker was going to be a dud.As fun as it would be to theorize why the media go crazy like this, scare the populace, and push stories that benefit no one except for the media, in form of increased ratings, and in this case, the anti-virus companies in the form of increased sales, I will resist. Instead I will just show you a few graphs and let you decide.
Let's take a look at some categories of websites in the run up to April 1st. First up...
Anti-Virus Software Providers:
It looks like panic and frenzy, frothed up by the media over inflated claims of a horribly destructive Internet worm are good for business. Bully for the anti-virus companies. This panic is a cash cow. A golden goose. But it is not all profit. These companies spent a lot of money in the last several months buying keywords on the search engines like "worm", "virus" and "conficker", and pushing out research reports about the grave danger. Hey, you gotta spend money to make money.Next up...
The Technology Press:
It is not clear that the Technology press benefited from the scare. Viewed on a shorter timescale, these sites all appeared to have a bit of a jump as April 1 approached. But taking a step back and looking at them over a longer period the apparent jump in traffic is well within normal bounds. As for the bump in the CNET graph, I'm not sure of the cause, but since it happened in early March I'll assume it wasn't conficker related.
Next up...
Mainstream Press:
I am not seeing any indication that the mainstream press increased their traffic in the run up to April 1. The traffic graphs all indicate that these sites were experiencing traffic well within normal bounds. If you were hoping to blame the press for pushing this story to increase ratings you will have to conclude that either a) you were wrong, or b) the press didn't do a very good job. Evil geniuses? Maybe you are half right.
Of the three categories, anti-virus companies, technology Press and mainstream press, who was the big winner? The anti-virus companies. So go out and buy some stock. They just got a nice little boost to the bottom line...Or, you had better hold that thought. You already missed the boat. Both Symantec and McAfee are both up 20% this month. Another lesson learned.
Today's lessons: A) News travels quickly, and B) Panic can be good for business.
