Steve Jobs Should NOT Have a Blog

At the Online Social Media blog, Debbie Turner makes an argument I have also heard from several public relations experts, that "Steve Jobs Should Blog."

No, he shouldn't. In fact, if there's one American chief executive whose PR people should keep him far away from social media, it's Jobs.

Turner herself acknowledges that "Jobs can appear somewhat aloof" and that "the problem with the way Jobs handled the situation is that it looked as though Apple didn't actually care about customers complaints."

Slate's Farhood Manjoo makes the case in more detail in a column about the Apple press conference at which Jobs managed to neither acknowledge nor apologize for the reception problems experienced by some iPhone 4 users: "I just wish Jobs could have handled this mini-crisis in a classier way. He could have admitted a problem, offered a fix.... Instead, he sounded wounded and paranoid, as if we were all being ungrateful for not recognizing Apple's contributions to the world."

Look, you only need to study Apple's advertising ("I'm a Mac...") to understand that the company's dominant personality trait is contempt for others. Contempt for PC users defines the company's branding; contempt for its own customers--as soon as they demonstrate any independent critical thinking about the products the company sells--came through in this week's press conference.

Give Jobs his own blog, and that contempt would permeate every post. Sooner or later, even the company's most ardent fans would get the hint.