• CNET News.com, Tuesday, June 26, 2007 11 AM

Google and Apple, whose stocks are hovering at all-time highs, have long been the darlings of the tech-heavy Nasdaq, partly because both companies have an uncanny ability to generate buzz.

The operative word is cachet, and Apple at the moment trumps Google in that category. As Google struggles with privacy issues and mounting speculation over its "don't be evil" ethos, Apple hardly gets a bad word in the press. Its customers happily lap up its expensive products. In the last six months, Apple's stock has been riding the iPhone wave, starting with the January announcement at Macworld, followed by a friendly (if expensive) reminder from CEO Steve Jobs at the Academy Awards a few months later. But that was pretty much it, until those TV spots started running a few weeks ago.

Apple has figured out how to appeal to consumers like no other company in technology, and with a smaller marketing budget than Intel and HP. Perhaps the secret in this interconnected Web 2.0 world is to create great products, make a few presentations, and let consumers and bloggers generate buzz. Of course that can backfire, like when Engadget erroneously reported an iPhone delay, causing Apple's stock to dip. But that just goes to show that word-of-mouth buzz is important and two, Apple's recent stock performance is heavily dependent on the iPhone success.

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