• Forbes, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 10:33 AM

The "Wizard of Oz" is a running theme in Mike Schaffner's blog about Steve Jobs' introduction of the iPad last week, which he finds underwhelming. Is there anything behind the curtain of Apple's well-honed ability to create marketing hysteria?

As for the product itself, in the words of Dewey Bunnel's "Tin Man," "Apple may find that 'Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have'." Which means, in a roundabout way, that Apple needs to return to "true marketing and product development rather than hype and pandering to a cult," according to Schaffner.

Most of the comments to the blog, however, tend to disagree with the author, who directs IT for the Valve and Measurement Group of Cameron, an oil and gas products and services company in Houston. Besides giving it a two-out-of-five star rating, the commentators generally make the point that, au contraire, Apple is generally mum about its products-to-be and should not be accused of hype. What's truly amusing, of course, is that everyone is ranting or raving or re-reporting about a product that they've not yet held in their hands. That's hype-generation to die for.

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