Sandy isn’t the only storm brewing, Surface and iPad Mini both try to make rain for their makers

Like many of you, I have family and friends on the east coast currently buckled down for the storm of the decade. While thanking our lucky stars we don’t share the same timezone, my wife and I felt an minor 4.0 trembler that reminded us that no place is without risks.
The same tremors were felt in the consumer electronics market last week with the dual launch of both the iPad Mini and the Microsoft Surface.  One of the key measures of launch success is how long the meme persists in the user mindshare, something we happen to measure at Argus Insights.  Below is the rough mindshare volume of the iPad Mini as compared to other products/brands mentioned within our iPad stream.

A falloff is to be expected, considering the buzz around the launch (see our earlier post here) but what’s interesting is the lack of any mentions of Microsoft Surface.  Only the usual suspects from Samsung and Amazon can even penetrate the buzz around the Mini.  When we examine a similar view of the Window 8 stream and look for evidence of Surface excitement we are faced with a different story.

Of course the new version of Windows is dominate but the day of the Surface launch event we seek the peak in user mentions of Surface.  Just two days later the Surface is almost wiped clean by co-mentions of the iPad Mini?  What gives?  Aren’t there stories of people lined up to buy the Surface Tablet with it’s cool Touch Cover and complete Office Suite?  When we dig into the actual mentions we find the culprit, Microsoft themselves.  So anxious to ensure Apple didn’t steal any thunder from their events last week, Win 8’s fearless leader specifically compared the Surface to the iPad Mini, calling the Mini only “recreational” while the Surface is the more modern mullet, business by day, party by night.  The update of this particular story almost blotted discussion of the Surface from the Twitter-sphere and provided Apple a voice where they previously had little.

Both products will find their sweet spot within the market.  As soon as we have actual user data to share (not just expert reviews) we’ll let you know the results of the next face-off between these two high pressure systems and be able to forecast which product will produce the most rain for their maker.