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Microsoft Vandalizes NYC
Brooklyn Bob writes "The New York Times (free registration etc.) is reporting that New York Tells Microsoft to Get Its Butterfly Decals Out of Town. Sure, it's "corporate graffiti", but the butterfly looks pretty good on the subway entrance." The story only covers a small part of their efforts to promote MSN, the "Microsoft operating system required" internet service. The first submission we got about the campaign described another part of it: Latent IT writes "I wish I had a link to submit with this, but strange things are afoot in New York City. At 61st and Broadway, 30-40 guys and gals in butterfly suits colored in the Microsoft colors, and carrying MSN banners just rollerbladed by, screaming at the top of their lungs down the middle of Broadway. Interestingly enough, this took them right near the under construction AOL Time Warner building. It seemed worth jotting down, but they were literally gone and down the street before I could reach my digital camera. (Place all bug on windshield jokes here.)"
No, it was not okay for IBM. Here is an article that explains why:
IBM caught tagging San Fran streets with Linux ads
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
IBM got fined for the cleanup.
Why these people dont post the no registration required links provided by Google news I don't know
After a brief huddle with two people whom she identified as being from McCann-Erickson, the advertising firm handling the account, Ms. Lacter said: "There's nothing else to say. They didn't want to get into a discussion about the details."
So it might not be MS's directive, but the PR/Ad agency screwing it up. Though *that's* a bit difficult to swallow that they didn't know you could get away with that. Probably more of a 'hey this will get *great* pr, be on the news for shaking up NYC, and we'll pay some crappy little fine at best (or offer MS XP to schools at a discount and thereby intrenching themselves more
NYT without the registration
posted anonymously so i don't look like a karma whore.
from the article: The law, Section 19-138 of the New York City administrative code, states: "It shall be unlawful for any person to deface any street by painting, printing or writing thereon, or attaching thereto, in any manner, any advertisement or other printed matter."
Did you read the article? hmm??
I like the title of this article. Vandlizing. Very "professional" journalism. LOL. Anyway.
They must have caught and changed it because less than ten minutes later, it's spelled correctly.
actually it was spraychalked.. they have this chalk that comes in a can with a propelant similar to that found in spraypaint.
-- john
The average person does not know what ISP stands for. The average person thinks that "AOL" equals "Internet." This is not meant as a slight on the the "average person," most of whom have much more important things to focus upon in their varied, non-tech-obsessed lives.
MS, fast on the heels of just about every major reviewer decalring MSN 8 superior to AOL 8, has just sent the average person a a message that there is another Internet besides AOL. I've never used either AOL or MSN, and have no love for either parent organization, but I see this as a brilliant publicity stunt by MS, no question.
The "average person on SlashDot," who has got his toaster oven connected to a Cisco router and is using it to hack into the SETI distribution, is neither the intended customer for the service nor the intended audience for the stunt.
you're right about the chicago stuff. evidently it was supposed to be done with biodegradable chalk:
9 71
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/754
perhaps the local advertising folks screwed up, or perhaps ibm is blaming them to cover their asses.
personally i dont appreciate either technique. i'm sick of seeing advertising everywhere i go-even if it is for linux. i would like to step outside and not see anything being advertised, but that is just me.
-- john
Not for long
It can also inform all people in your address book (or your selection) about the email address change.
I'm running FreeBSD at home and connecting to MSN just fine. (Yeah, I sold my soul to them for a $200 Circuit $hitty Gift Certificate in exchange for a two year contract.) Hey, I needed an ISP, so I figured I may as well profit from giving someone my business...
Does MS actually have a better SPAM filter than Hotmail's
Yes it does.
They implemented some new AI technology form MS Research to figure out what is spam.
Since junk mail for some people might not be junk mail for others the programs learns your preferences and adjusts itself as you keep using it.
Can anyone imagine that there is still a market for people who need their hands held as they walk along the Information Superhighway? Nonetheless, I have GOT to get a clip of Billy G. in the reported "Butterfly Suit."
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Um, no. The IBM/Linux pieces were neither 'spraychalked' nor 'bio-degradeable'. Over a YEAR later, they are still visibile. This is after thousands of people walking over them, rains, sidewalk washings and even IBM paying a private company to try to remove them. They were eventually fined by the City but it doesn't make them go away.
These stickers and such are nothing compared to the IBM/Linux spray ads.
There are very few real things in this world...this isn't one of them.
Butterflies in Seattle
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Well, other things aside, they may be thin enough to not cause a bump problem, but making the sidewalk a slicker surface might be an issue, especially if one wheel of a chair is on a surface with a different friction coefficient than the other wheel...
But this is a wild stab at rational, the stickers may be non-trivially thin, or there could be other reasons. The point is when certain areas are engineered for accessability, people shouldn't mess with them, and it is even more unacceptable for a company to be this irresponsible. They don't find it acceptable for people to do spraypainting, SF fined IBM for the peace, love, linux grafitti, and even with all these precedents, MS goes out and marks everything in sight.... AOL carpetbombs the US with CDs, now MS bombards the US with butterflies (since MSN ships with Windows already, a CD is rather pointless).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
No problem at all. Straight PPP. My MSMessenger pumps through gaim.
Am I just lucky?
The sidewalk decals were a heavier plastic, with a roughly textured surface. Though they were stuck to the pavement, they too could be lifted off fairly easily.
I'm curious how people will 'creative modify' the Microsoft ads. Any pictures?
We get these annoying sidewalk decals in San Francisco all the time. Usually they're on private property, but too often they're on the public sidewalk in hard-to-ignore locations.
The most annoying ads are in the public train stations. The ads are usually placed at the top or bottom of the staircases (and in some cases, ON the staircases), or in some other location that is hard to ignore. For example, imagine a group of people travelling down in an escalator. Where are people looking? 95% of the people will looking at the base of the escalator at some point. So, the clever ad companies place these annoying ads at the base of the escalator, where it's almost impossible to ignore them.
This is why that whenever I pass one of these sidewalk stickers on public areas, I always make sure to take an extra few seconds to discretely lift up one of the corners of the sticker-ad with the sole of my shoe. The stickers are usually made of a heavy plastic, and it's difficult to tear them up without a sharp object.
As large groups of people pass through the train station and walk over the sticker, some individuals will eventually step on the torn up corner, and the advertisement will become even more torn up over time. Many people hate the ads as much as I do, and will also make an effort to kick up the sticker a little bit more. As the advertisement comes off the sidewalk, it becomes uglier and dirtier, wish tarnishes the image that the advertiser is trying to promote.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."