Good news! We’re now officially awash in new Windows ads. Not only are the first commercials in the second phase of TV spots out, but Microsoft has posted some new ads that will show up in print publications. It’s no surprise that these ones are a bit more explicit about Windows as a product line, compared to the almost-entirely-emotional print ads. I can’t imagine anyone having the sort of violent negative reaction to the print campaign that some people had to the first TV ads, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun picking them apart in excessive detail.
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Good God, I Sort of Like Microsoft’s New Windows Ads
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday morning, the assumption was that we were going to get more Microsoft ads involving Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, and that they were probably going to be just as annoying as the first ones. Then we learned that the Seinfeld ads are over for now and that Microsoft was moving on to ads which respond directly to Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign.
The first new Windows commercials are up, and after Bill and Jerry, they feel like a breathe of fresh air. (Then again, ads for HeadOn–apply directly to the forehead!–would feel like a breathe of fresh air after Bill and Jerry.) Who knows–maybe Microsoft was engaged in some sort of evil-genius strategy that involved beginning with weird, annoying spots so that the real ads would look that much better when they started.
Here they are, after the jump:
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Um, Pardon Me, But You Seem to Have Borrowed the Amazon Logo
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we’re one of the few regions of the country that’s got choice when it comes to cable TV and cable broadband. There’s a great big company that does it–Comcast, I think they’re called–but a little company called Astound is also in the game. I’m used to seeing Astound trucks around town, carrying this non-descript logo:
But I just saw one of the company’s trucks zip by, and it carried an all-new logo. Which looked like this:
I can’t imagine anyone seeing that and not thinking what I thought: “Good God, that looks almost exactly like the Amazon.com logo!”
The smiley-below-the-name idea is nearly identical. The typefaces are very close. The use of orange is similar. And the names of the two companies aren’t exactly radically different. They’re about as close as two logos can be without being the same logo.
In fact, they’re so eerily similar that I wondered if Amazon had bought Astound. Nope, as far as I can tell: Astound is part of something called WaveDivision Holdings.
I’m not a trademark attorney, but I do know this: If I were Amazon.com, and Astound’s logo isn’t somehow used under license, I’d be nonplussed. In fact, I might get all frowny over it:
Looking on the bright side, though, if the companies ever merge, the rebranding would be a cinch. Here, I’ll do it for ’em right here and now:
Or, conversely:
That was easy…
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Yahoo! It’s Music, Right in Yahoo!
Okay, now this is cool: When you search for a musical artist or group using Yahoo Search, you may get a box at the top of the results that lets you listen to songs—full songs, not samples, and without leaving the search results. It’s done through a partnership with Rhapsody, and you can listen to up to 25 free songs a month, no registration or other heavy lifting required.
Here, for instance, is what I got when I searched for The Doors:
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Harry, Elsewhere on the Web
Just a quick note on some places you’ll find me other than Technologizer:
–I just launched a new blog! It’s called McCracken on Media, and it’s aimed at folks like me who are riding the bucking bronto that is the media business in 2008 and beyond. I plan to share much of what I learn as Technologizer grows there, so if you’re into behind-the-scenes stuff, please visit.
–I also guestblogged recently for the American Society of Business Publication Editors on some early lessons from the Technologizer experience.
–And I’m part of a conversation going on at Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends on entrepreneurial experiences. Here’s a post on technology that’s been unexpectedly helpful. Here’s one on achieving profitability. And here’s one on defining moments.
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The Thirteen Greatest Error Messages of All Time
In theory, error messages should be painful at worst and boring at best. They tend to be cryptic; they rarely offer an apology even when one is due; they like to provide useless information like hexadecimal numbers and to withhold facts that would be useful, like plain-English explanations of how to right want went wrong. In multiple ways, most of them represent technology at its most irritating.
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Microsoft Embraces “I’m a PC”
Curiouser and curiouser. An hour or two after news broke that Microsoft’s Windows ads would go Seinfeldless, the New York Times has lots of details on the new commercials in the campaign. They won’t be free of celebrities: Eva Longoria, Deepak Chopra, and Pharrell Williams will be on hand. (As will Bill Gates, but apparently only in a supporting role.)
But the most intriguing thing about the new ads is this: They will make explicit reference to Apple’s “Get a Mac” spots. The Times says that a Microsoft engineer who looks like John Hodgman (aka Apple’s PC) will even say thw words “I’m a PC”–before launching into what sounds like a possibly whiny, but accurate, complaint about being stereotyped by Apple’s ads.
I’m no ad critic, but I will take a tiny bit of credit for at least noticing that the phrase “PC” was used in the second Seinfeld/Gates ad, and wondering what was up with that:
At the end of the commercial, the phrase “Perpetually Connecting” turns into the abbreviation “PC.” I can’t think of another ad in recent Microsoft history that’s made reference to Windows-based computers as PCs–it feels like an almost direct response to Apple’s Get a Mac ads and their Mac and PC characters. I wonder if future ads will also call PCs PCs. (Actually, I hope not: I used to be a stickler for the notion that all personal computers, including Macs, are PCs; I’ve sort of given up, though.)
So yup, we now know that Microsoft will call PCs PCs, and it is a response to Apple’s ads.
Other tidbits from the Times story:
–The ads will use the theme “Life Without Walls”–I’m not sure if this is instead of the rumored “Windows, Not Walls.” or in addition to it. There will be a microsite called LifeWithoutWalls.com (which, right now, seems to simply redirect to the main Windows site).
–Microsoft will let real people upload video and photos explaining why they’re PCs, too, and will use some of this material in ads.
I’m done judging ads I haven’t seen yet, but we’ll all apparently get the chance to start critiquing these ones tomorrow. And I do have a few more questions:
–Can the campaign both be about PCs and not about PCs? Microsoft blogger Chris Flores said just a few days ago that the campaign “will talk about Windows in all its forms. Not just the OS for PCs we happen to be shipping today. In fact, not just an OS. And not just on PCs. Simply put, this campaign isn’t about Windows Vista. It’s about Windows.” Sounds logical enough, but possibly hard to reconcile with ads that take on Apple’s ads directly and talk about PCs.
–What does “Life Without Walls” mean, anyhow? And what does it have to do with PCs or operating systems? If Microsoft argues that Windows is better because it’s available in multiple forms on multiple devices, isn’t it contending that walls can be good?
–Will we ever learn whether Microsoft changed course with the Seinfeld spots? In a new post, Flores says that the company always planned to move beyond Seinfeld as the campaign progressed. I’m sure that’s true. But he doesn’t really address whether we ended up with less Jerry than was originally planned based on initial response to the campaign. (The Times article has a couple of research firms saying that buzz about the Bill/Jerry ads was highly favorable to Microsoft–news to me!)
Stand by for more bulletins as events warrant…
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Windows, Not Jerry: Microsoft to Can Seinfeld Ads?
[Update: See this post for the latest news on Microsoft’s next wave of Windows ads.]
It’s unthinkable. And astounding. But the world will probably survive. Valleywag is reporting that Microsoft will announce phase two of its $300 million Windows ad campaign tomorrow–a phase that doesn’t include Jerry Seinfeld.
According to Valleywag, Microsoft is maintaining that the company planned to say goodbye to Jerry all along. But it’s hard to imagine that they paid him $10 million to do two spots, or that the two spots we saw were all the Seinfeld that Microsoft intended to give us. And Valleywag quotes Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw as saying “People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected.”
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SlingCatcher: It’s Almost Here–Finally!–and Looks Neat
Way back in January of last year, Sling Media–the inventors of the nifty SlingBox box, which can broadcast TV from your home across the Net to your laptop or phone–announced its second major project. The SlingCatcher, it said, was a new device that would flip around the Slingbox’s functionality, sending video in a multitude of formats from a PC across a home network to a TV. It got lots of attention.
And then…nothing happened. For a long time. But I met with Sling co-founder/CEO Blake Krikorian today, and am happy to report that the release of Slingcatcher, which Krikorian said turned out to be a more challenging engineering project than anyone expected, is imminent. It’s not exactly the box that Sling unveiled in 2007: It offers a wired Ethernet connection but not the Wi-Fi it was originally going to include, and costs $300 rather than the sub-$200 pricetag that Sling targeted. But it’s still an intrguing product, and one which–like the Slingbox–is unique.
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Sarah Palin’s Personal Yahoo E-mail Hacked
The McCain campaign may soon find itself defending against criticisms from a entirely new angle, thanks to some hackers who have apparently broke into two personal e-mail accounts of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. While details of what exactly was included in those inboxes are still in the process of being disclosed, it could possibly add fuel to speculation that Palin had been using personal e-mail accounts for state business.
McClatchy reporter Lisa Demer reported on this practice on Tuesday, writing that the Governor is not the only one to use personal e-mail for official work, but several others in Palin’s administration do so. Some see this as a potential method for Palin and others to get around archiving laws.
Activists have been pressing the government for more disclosure on exactly what Palin has been doing in these e-mails, which may have been the impetus for the hackers known as “anonymous” to attempt the hack. According to Wikileaks, the group gained access to Palin’s account sometime Tuesday.
While in fairness to the governor, many of the e-mails appear harmless and of a personal nature, a few are addressed to state officials. One is to Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, another to Governor’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse member Amy McCorkell. There also appear to be quite a few e-mails to Ivy Frye, an aide of Palin’s (see here and here). The contents of the Frye e-mails are not known.
Wikileaks says the Guardian has looked at the data and found that some of the e-mails include a draft of an email to Governor Schwarzenegger, discussions on state appeals court nominees, and e-mails from a “DPS,” likely the Alaska Department of Safety.
The e-mail accounts in question have since been deleted, which could be a potential problem in the ongoing investigation of the so-called “Troopergate” mess (Critics argue that Palin may have used this accounts in connection with those events). Either way, the McCain campaign has wasted no time in quickly denouncing the hack.
“This is a shocking invasion of the Governor’s privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment,” McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said.
I doubt however that the campaign will be able to stay quiet, especially if it is discovered that Palin was misusing the accounts as has been suspected.