Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business

Chapter 10. PRINCIPLE 7: REWARD OTHERS AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED, TOO

	To be successful, have your heart in your business and your business in your heart.
	--Thomas Watson

Some people lined up inside shopping malls, others along the sidewalks of Manhattan. What all these folks were waiting for on June 29, 2007, was the much-anticipated release of Apple's iPhone. Apple stores around the country closed at 2:00 pm EST that day and reopened four hours later for all who were willing to shell out $599 or $499 for the first two models. In Orlando, Florida, for example, hundreds of people stood in line at the Apple store and high-fived employees on their way through the front doors, cheering and clapping all the while.

Even more exciting than the iPhone were the applications for this handheld, touchscreen device. Many of them became available before the phone had been released. An entirely new industry was, in fact, born, from the 11 initial applications, all developed by Apple, to the 50 that formed the foundation of the app store that Apple had opened within 90 days of the iPhone's release. Dubbed "The Planet of Apps" by CNBC in a 2010 documentary, the application craze started by Apple has turned into a $2.5 billion yearly earnings extravaganza for the company—and that is just Apple's share of the rewards. In less than 18 months, more than 100,000 iPhone applications were designed—not by Apple, but by a nation of developers looking to fulfill the needs and desires of the Apple community. ...