Yes, to be honest, I didn't think of it from the "free traffic" perspective. But I wonder how important this actually is. Sure reddit / hn / slashdot crowd will happily check that kind of news, but are those services significant in any way in the number of applications bought? I don't see how a random user from the appstore target would find that post at all. But maybe I'm wrong here?
The marketing angle on this is great. It's not big exposure for apple, but it does completely illuminate a potentially larger conversation around API's. Steve is the one guy that could stop the conversation and having him make the 5min call changes the conversation for the issue, to how hands on Apple is with the development community.
Now, there is no way that Steve has time to deal with every problem, but things that have the potential for becoming bigger conversations I definitely see him stepping in quickly. He still reviews every.. EVERY single peace of advertising about the Apple brand and approves it personally...When it comes to brand, Steve is the most hands on CEO there is.
yes and because of the slashdot/hn/reddit traffic the site gets a large boost in inbound links which will up the site ranking thereby increasing search engine visibility. It could just be a total fabrication from the developer that jobs called him though and he might be saying it to get the traffic.
