Two of Seattle’s tech giants are battling it out for tech media mindshare today, with Amazon.com announcing its much-anticipated $99 Amazon Fire TV device at a press event in New York and Microsoft unveiling a host of new features at its Build conference in San Francisco. (This certainly has made for a busy day for our scrappy news staff here at GeekWire).
In some ways, it’s like the up-and-comer versus the wily old veteran. And, at least based on the popular tech news aggregator TechMeme, Microsoft is winning the day in terms of press coverage.
Ten of the top stories on TechMeme right now are tied to Microsoft, including reports on the Windows 8.1 update and new information about the personal digital assistant Cortana. Amazon.com counts five headlines.
Picking a date for tech launches can be tricky, given the constant news flow in the industry. But Microsoft Build has been on the calendar for some time, while tech journalists were just notified a few days ago about Amazon’s set-top box announcement.
It’s a bit unusual that Amazon chose the same day as the Build conference to release the device. But, then again, the company certainly tends to walk to the beat of its own drummer when it comes to PR.
It also says something that Microsoft’s top brass — including newly-appointed CEO Satya Nadella — was in attendance at Build. Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, skipped the launch of the Kindle Fire TV. A CEO’s remarks usually can drive more buzz and news.
For our part, GeekWire had a reporter in San Francisco for the Build event, our Bay Area correspondent Blair Hanley Frank, and we covered the Amazon event from afar after exploring different ways of being there in person. (One freelancer we reached out to about covering the Amazon event already had plans to fly to San Francisco for Build, while others were tied up on other projects).
So, which tech giant do you think had the most significant news today? Let us know in the comments.
GeekWire’s Tricia Duryee contributed to this report.
