ParisLemon

Two days ago, I wrote this story on TechCrunch predicting that Apple could overtake Exxon this fall as the most valuable public company in the world. 

It got about a billion pageviews, was all over Techmeme, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. Everyone read it. Most of the commenters called me insane, but well, they’re commenters.

Anyway, fast-forward to today.

Mashable: Apple Is $50 Billion Away From Becoming The World’s Most Valuable Company

NYT: World’s Most Valuable Company? Apple Has $50 Billion to Go

Now, am I really to believe that neither of these publications read my post two days ago? (Naturally, there are no links, or this wouldn’t be brought up.) That they independently were tracking and came up with the same idea? Market Cap isn’t a hugely popular thing to watch in our space, it’s just one of those things I’ve obsessed over for a while because I knew it would be interesting to watch over time for contextual purposes. Like this.

Worse, Apple isn’t even really within $50 billion of Exxon yet, they’re still about $55 billion away. So it’s odd that both would jump the gun and push out the post for a milestone that actually hasn’t happened. Unless they had read my story two days before and were tracking the numbers due to that, including the after-hours numbers.

Perhaps it was the part where I suggested that after Apple announced their Q3 earnings (which was the following day — yesterday), the gap with Exxon should close quickly.

I’m sure I’m just being paranoid and that this isn’t yet more jackassery in the blogosphere.

Update: Make it Deja Three.

AllThingsD: Apple Could Eclipse Exxon in Market Cap

The post cites an analyst thinking along these lines. It should cite “an analyst that reads TechCrunch” or just “TechCrunch”.

Update 2: Make it Deja Four.

Electronista (which rarely seems to have its own articles/ideas): Apple poised to beat Exxon Mobil in market cap