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.)"

Comments

You think they would've learned

[wiredog]

from the IBM Linux grafitti fiasco in San Francisco.

Re:You think they would've learned

[apnu]

it's not just SF, here in Chicago as well. you can still see the faint image of Tux at the Jackson street subway entrance to the Blue line.

Re:You think they would've learned

[Anonymous Coward]

What bugs me is the two stories about the Linux Grafitti was all about a good advertising scheme, and this is about 'vandalization'. Petty narrowmindedness is annoying.

Re:You think they would've learned

[Jucius Maximus]

"What bugs me is the two stories about the Linux Grafitti was all about a good advertising scheme, and this is about 'vandalization'. Petty narrowmindedness is annoying."

The microsoft signs are made with appliqués that are just stuck to walls by static electricity. The ones on sidewalks are can be peeled off. This creates undue waste and probably could create hazards for people who try to nagivate over the sidewalk appliqués in wheelchairs. I expect the people in butterfly suits create an annoyance for all.

The linux campaign was done with biodegradable chalk. Big difference. No harmful waste. Less hazard for transportation, although some say that chalk makes rodes more slippery. And as far as I know, they didn't have people in Tux suits swarming around and creating more distractions.

Both of them create visual distractions and probably shouldn't have been attempted in the first place without authorisation from the city. But the IBM campaign was definitely better thought out than this microsoft one.

Re:You think they would've learned

[gimpboy]

actually it was spraychalked.. they have this chalk that comes in a can with a propelant similar to that found in spraypaint.

Re:You think they would've learned

[jonbrewer]

What bugs me is the two stories about the Linux Grafitti was all about a good advertising scheme, and this is about 'vandalization'. Petty narrowmindedness is annoying.

Quit whining. The IBM Linux ads were portrayed as vandalization and grafitti on Slashdot too. IBM was reprimanded by SF, Chicago, Cambridge, etc., and it was reported about on Slashdot.

http://slashdot.org/articles/01/05/21/0212208.sh tm l

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/04/19/ibm. gu erilla.idg/

Re:You think they would've learned

[schlach]

Ok, I must have missed the story about the IBM San-Fran chalking faisco, but someone posted the relevant links. The real IDG story, and the exclusive coverage of the IDG story, at the Register.

The short story is that IBM got caught spraypainting / chalking Tux and the caption "Peace, Love, and Linux" on the sidewalks of numerous street corners all over the city. They claimed it was "biodegradable", if not "easily water soluble" chalk, and were banking on it disappearing the next time it rained. It didn't. The article doesn't mention whether it eventually did wash off, after several rains (think back to college days - did that chalk only last one rainfall?), or whether they had to break down and have it removed first.

I have a picture of one of the MSN butterflies applied to the 7th Avenue Station sign, but I don't know where to post it. You'd say it was quite tasteful if you saw it. It looks like part of the sign. I hear a lot of arguments about why MS's campaign is evil, whereas IBM's was just and righteous. I'm going to play Devil's Advocate for a minute here, since no one else seems to want to.

I don't want to hear anyone in this country say that the reason MS's campaign is evil is because they create waste. I'm not saying they don't, but is that the reason that you think fast-food, snail-mail solicitations from charitable organizations, and buying soda is evil? Let's be honest about how much waste we all generate, whether or not we're tacking up little butterflies to subway stations...

And the rollerbladers are evil, not because they are generating waste, but because they're a "distraction". A pedestrian might walk into an open manhole because they were too distracted by the butterfly men. Uh huh. MS has pretty deep pockets. Let the frivolous lawsuits begin. If you can squeeze any money out of their lawyers, you've earned it.

What's that leave? Evil because they're advertising for MSN 8, instead of a righteous cause such as Linux, therefore anything they do, regardless of eco-friendliness and distractive potential is Evil? I don't think a rational argument can be made for or against that, so I don't want to debate it.

MS is evil, because IBM did it first. Hate to disappoint, but IBM did not invent the concept of publicity stunt. I have no idea how far back it goes, but in modern times I've got a reference here for 1917 before the original release of the first Tarzan movie. Harry Reichenbach was hired to promote it, so he anonymously let loose an oranguatan dressed in a tuxedo inside a fancy hotel filled with New York elite. The newspapers had a field day, and a few days later, Reichenbach called to let them know that it had been a stunt for Tarzan, so they covered it again, this time letting everyone know it had been for the movie. Tarzan made a killing at the box-office.

As far as I'm concerned, every publicity stunt since then has been Evil. Evil! (whoops, I think I lost my serious edge. Anyway, my source on the Tarzan story is Uncle John's Biggest Ever Bathroom Reader, from the scholarly "Bathroom Reader's Institute", which is an absolute crack-pipe for trivia junkies like myself.)

You may now resume the one-sided witchhunt. =)

Re:You think they would've learned

[the_Bionic_lemming]

What a crock - exactly how much waste are we talking? More than one dumpster day at Burger King? I sincerely doubt the amount of butterflys posted out there would come close to matching the amount of Ciggarrete buds ground into the ground down central avenue in an hour.

While I think that they (and the penguin) should not have defaced public property with ads - to simply state that it creates waste and Microsoft is evil because of that IMHO just illustrates an agenda rather than a fact.

Microsoft does do bad things. We know that. It's a given, Just like rain falling from the sky, Grass grows, and rocks hurt when they fall off a cliff and hit you on the head.

But to claim "waste" and "landfill" on this? Sheesh..

Re:You think they would've learned

[Chromonkey]

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.

Re:You think they would've learned

[Reality Master 101]

And the rollerbladers are evil, not because they are generating waste, but because they're a "distraction". A pedestrian might walk into an open manhole because they were too distracted by the butterfly men.

Sheesh, man, you're really digging deep trying to find something wrong with this. By that logic, you could get sued because you distracted someone by picking your nose.

As far as open manhole covers go, it's the city that would get sued under ANY circumstances. It's not like they normally leave ones lying open without any sort of fencing or another worker directing people around it.

Re:You think they would've learned

[schlach]

I think you misunderstood my intent. I was ridiculing the argument that the butterfly men were Evil, simply because they posed a distraction. I agree that it's nonsensical, but it's going on in other parts of the discussion as we speak. I read several comments to that effect.

Does anyone else feel ridiculous saying "the butterfly men"?

Re:You think they would've learned

[ceejayoz]

Read his whole comment - he's not taking that position. He's using that to ridicule the original poster who said the rollerbladers were a distraction, not agreeing with him...

Sheesh.

Re:You think they would've learned

[Latent IT]

And the rollerbladers are evil, not because they are generating waste, but because they're a "distraction". A pedestrian might walk into an open manhole because they were too distracted by the butterfly men.

Yeah, I agree he's digging with that. Manholes are only laying around open in the movies anyway. ;)

The thing is, there were about 30-40 of these butterfly guys, and they went straight down the center of the street. Blocking *all* lanes of traffic, probably intentionally. If I was down there driving instead of leaning out my window seeing it, I'd have been all sorts of pissed.

Re:You think they would've learned

[Latent IT]

Um, no. The IBM/Linux pieces were neither 'spraychalked' nor 'bio-degradeable'. Over a YEAR later, they are still visibile.

Seriously, I'd be interested to see that. There were two of those ads on my block, and they were gone in a week. And it really *was* chalk.

These MSN sidewalk stickers are stickers, and aren't pulled up easily. (lord knows I tried ;p)

Slightly odder is the stickers they're placing on *buildings* of the MSN butterfly, willy-nilly. They're those static kind of stickers that don't really use any glue or anything, so it's really okay. I have a couple of those now. ;)

Re:You think they would've learned

[Reality Master 101]

I was ridiculing the argument that the butterfly men were Evil, simply because they posed a distraction.

Sorry, I think I misread your post. It's a little ambiguous there in the middle. :)

Re:You think they would've learned

[schlach]

Even if this specific guy is not an MS shill, how many people who defend MS here are? Keep up your cynicism, review the record, they haven't changed.

I couldn't agree more. I hate when I post jokes at Microsoft's expense, and they get modded down by MS zealots. As far as being anybody's shill, I stand by my track record. My real issue is intelligence and open-mindedness on Slashdot. The strength of the community increases when we don't sound like a bunch of reactionary zealots, ourselves.

Actually, what I think would be a better plot if I were 'Astroturfing' (?), would be to post an accusatory comment calling into question my objectivity, and allowing me to post comments testifying to my credibility, thereby heading off others' potential criticism. Kinda like the whole Republicans and Democrats being owned by the same guy. Or Coke and Pepsi.

Wrap your head around that... ; )

... And then to establish my credibility even further, I'd tell people my entire plan, in case they suspected as much...

Who's gonna out-paranoid who? =)

Re:You think they would've learned

[Latent IT]

Yeah, I was reading some of the other posts to that end... don't worry about the picture, I really do believe you. =)

I've been thinking - IBM must have used some kind of local ad agencies, right? I mean, I highly doubt they were flying some kind of penguin swat team around the country. It seems that they said to use chalk, and some local goobers fouled things up.

It also sounds like it happened in Chicago too, though. So maybe the NYC agency fouled up and used chalk, while IBM specified paint. ;p

Vandalizes?

[yohaas]

That might be little strong. They didn't do any damage. Get over it.

Re:Vandalizes?

[IRNI]

But, my question is... Is it illegal to paintball the MS skaters? Does that fall under artistic freedom? :)

Re:Vandalizes?

[taphu]

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??

Re:Vandalizes?

[nege]

No they should get some guys in penguin suits to go beat the crap out of the butterflys. Oh wait...that would be illegal too. Maybe they should settle this on the 'rink, where fighting only gets you in the penalty box.

Re:Vandalizes?

[xtremex]

Actually..it's NOT legal. There are city laws that prohibit this. Especially since Giuliani was in office.

Re:Vandalizes?

[taphu]

It is considered vandalization for a kid to spray paint his name onto the subway wall, even though this doesn't damage the wall. So yes, "vandalizes" is the correct term for microsoft attaching little butterflies all over publicly owned property.

Re:Vandalizes?

[Deth_Master]

You read the article, right? Some anonymouse coward posted it, but it might be below your threshold, look for "courtesy of the NYTimes fake login generator" as the title
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."
They broke the law, plain and simple. Microsoft implied that they had a "Permit" for it("There are permits for everything," said Colleen Lacter of Waggener Edstrom, a public relations firm representing Microsoft), but the source was not identified in the article...suspicious? ( But she would not tell a reporter what agency had issued the permits. 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." ) It wasn't the people going nuts down the street. It was the gobs of butterflies they spewed all over a part of NYC.

Re:Vandalizes?

[gallen1234]

The emphasis is on "claims". When confronted on the issue they had a hasty conference and headed for the door.

Re:Vandalizes?

[G27 Radio]

The "stickers" at the static type, not the sticky type so it sounds a lot more like littering than vandalism to me. BTW, the vandalism fine is only $50. Littering fines are usually more expensive.

Re:Vandalizes?

[toupsie]

That might be little strong. They didn't do any damage. Get over it.

Wrong! I work near Madison Ave. Yesterday morning and this morning I watched building supers scraping off the stupid butterflies off their buildings. The stickers are on the sidewalks as well and they have that slick coating. I am just waiting for an old lady to face plant right into traffic. You are not going to get a city employee to scrape them up -- they have better unions than the building supers.

This is just as annoying as IBM's stupid "Peace, Love and Linux" campaign of last year where the stickered everything and spray painted their logo at every street corner.

Re:Vandalizes?

[tetra103]

Hey, you beat to the punch!

Say it was a "legal" permit for them to lay advertisements across midtown. Would it have been "illegal" if a bunch of Linux die hards when around cleaning it up? And yeah! Dressed as penguins would have been the kicker. Could almost carry a story line like "Linux cleans up after Microsoft's mess!" Talk about an advertising campain backfire.

Re:Vandalizes?

[SubtleNuance]

How about Mass Littering?

equally offensive.

Re:Vandalizes?

[rseuhs]

I think you are a bit confused.

Let me explain:

If an individual sprays/puts something on one wall, it's vandalization and by now probably terrorism.

If a megacorporation sprays/puts something on 1000 walls, it's "they didn't do any damage, get over it."

Do you have any other naive questions or is everything clear now?

Re:Vandalizes?

[sludg-o]

Is it illegal to paintball the MS skaters?

Legal or not, you should never fire a paintball gun at someone not playing paintball.

That's what real guns are for

Re:Vandalizes?

[Soko]

heh.

Sports at 11: The Pittsburg Penguins anhialate the Seattle Butterflies. o_O

Way cool.

Soko

Re:Vandalizes?

[loconet]

Or, They can say those were not butterflies, but butterflyfish , and pengiuns eat fish ...

Re:Vandalizes?

[jelle]

Where is the treshold for ease of cleaning it up that defines leaving a mark on a public wall as not being vandalism?

There is none. Gaffiti is graffiti, independent from ease or cost of the cleanup.

Re:Vandalizes?

[Anonvmous Coward]

Wow, you're full of insightful comments. *Not* heh.

Jackass.

What were they screaming?

[sczimme]

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.

Give it up for us! Whoooooo hooooo!

Re:What were they screaming?

[Jucius Maximus]

I've seen sillier ones. Like this one day on Bay Street in Toronto there were these guys and gals walking around in skimpy pyjamas handing out flyers for ... whatever they were advertising.

Re:What were they screaming?

[Rai]

*mumbles something about catching the snipers too soon*

Yeah, I know...bad taste. I beg your pardon, Mr. Sensitivity.

Re:What were they screaming?

[gaudior]

Developers!

Developers!

Developers!

What Else?

Re:What were they screaming?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Oh, I think we all know what they were screaming...

Re:What were they screaming?

[teamhasnoi]

Too much acid! Don't take the brown acid! Ahhhhhh! Save us Ellen Feiss save us!

Re:What were they screaming?

[Jezza]

Ha HA!

I just got a mental image of a big fat bald butterfly, sweating profusely surrounded by medics on a street corner.

Thanks gaudior, very VERY funny!

Re:What were they screaming?

[mustangdavis]

... this took them right near the under construction AOL Time Warner building.

*thinking where are the terrorists when you need them ... *

Ok, this may be even worse than the bit about the snipers, but you have to admit it would be pretty cool to take out a bunch of annyoing butterflies with something as useless as AOL/Time Warner! It is what I call two butterflies with one stone (*ohh .. that may be worse*)

Re:What were they screaming?

[wazzzup]

Developers! Developers! Developers!

Re:What were they screaming?

[Cruciform]

It's New York... people walk *around* muggings while they're occuring.

You think they're going to remember some people in butterfly suits? :)

Learned what?

[dnoyeb]

Learned what? How expensive is advertising? How expensive do you expect the fine to be? Do the math.

Now some Jail time would be welcome :D

Re:Learned what?

[Jucius Maximus]

"Learned what? How expensive is advertising? How expensive do you expect the fine to be? Do the math."

There's no such thing as bad publicity. Even if they get a lot of bad press, there will still be a lot of pictures circulated with the butterfly and its association with microsoft.

Re:Learned what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The butterfly is just another Microsoft bug.

Re:Learned what?

[ceejayoz]

Article says the fine is $50.

I imagine that's gonna bankrupt Microsoft almost as badly as buying X-boxes from them will!

Re:Learned what?

[Jonny Ringo]

There's no such thing as bad publicity.

oh man! that's our problem. MS is doing it to themselves on purpose to get bad articles, it just helps them! Quite posting bad MS aritcles!

Re:Learned what?

[tetro]

No such thing as bad publicity?

What if some executive weirdo plans to spearhead a new campaign by having Bill Gates having sex with underaged donkeys while drinking urine from a empty skull of a dead horse while tweaking the nipples of senior citizen monkeys.

I think anything weirder than that would just scare people away from microsoft.

Re:Learned what?

[jelle]

Doesn't New York have a three-strikes-you're-out kind of law?

Re:Learned what?

[jelle]

"There's no such thing as bad publicity."

Oh yeah? What about "Company X has cooked the books"?

Ask Enron or Worldcom if that wasn't bad publicity.

MSJackass?

[cpfeifer]

Perhaps this is just a stunt for MS' new product, MSJackass for their new cable channel MSMTV?

Re:MSJackass?

[$rtbl_this]

...MSJackass...

Please, at least show Mr. Ballmer the courtesy of using his real name.

Re:MSJackass?

[Virtex]

Oh, okay. I'll use MSMonkeyBoy from now on.

I'm Sold!

[BoBaBrain]

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

What a fantastically compelling ad campaign! I'll take two of whatever it is they are selling.

Beat y'all to it. :)

[Triv]

Check out my journal on the subject from last week. I was going to submit it, but for the life of me couldn't figure out where it'd go, assumed it would be rejected and blogged it instead. :)

Triv

Steve Balmer

[wilburdg]

Terrible mental image of Steve Balmer wearing a sweat soaked butterfly suit and roller blades, yelling "Developers! Developers!"....

*cringe*

Re:Steve Balmer

[Triv]

Sweat-soaked, skintight, velvet jumpsuit with cute little butterfly wings.

Just a mild correction there to make your nightmares more realistic. :)

Triv

Re:Steve Balmer

[stefanlasiewski]

Sweat-soaked, skintight, velvet jumpsuit with cute little butterfly wings.

Hey now, whatever Steve does in his personal life is his own business, as long as all activities involve consensual adults.

This One Time, At Band Camp

[Gimpin]

How old are these marketing nazi's to believe that people actually give two shits about a product or the hype? Sounds all too much like a high school pep rally.

Re:This One Time, At Band Camp

[Corporate Troll]

Insightful? I don't think so. People are by now used to ignore ads because they are everywhere. Now, marketers need to be much more creative in order to get noticed...and doing extravagant (or even illegal) things will get attention in many ways. The main action stirs up dust, with a result that local newspapers will report it (or even non-local). Remember: there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Besides, with a little luck these rollerblading people with butterfly wings are cute girl. And who never fantasized about cute elfs... Oh, wait... that would be just me... did I say that out loud?

Re:This One Time, At Band Camp

[dnoyeb]

Great. Why not just grab my balls, and when I look down show your add...not much different.

MSN 8?

[moeman]

Anyone notice the comercials that just started playing for the NEW version of MSN, simply called "MSN 8"? Hmmm, now I admit I have no idea what version they were on before, but it seems a little suspiciouse that MSN 8 is being released on the heals of the new AOL version 8.0. My only real question is, why didn't MS go ahead and call it "MSN 9" just to get one step ahead?

Re:MSN 8?

[Ig0r]

The feature they're so proud of is that they get your money if you subscribe.

Re:MSN 8?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just MSN with us.

Re:MSN 8?

[MyHair]

Well MSN and AOL are on 8, Mac has gone to OS X, MS Office is on version 10. Nobody's higher than 10. See, what I've done is created a version 11. That's right, no one else has 11. This is one better than anything anyone else can hope for.

Re:MSN 8?

[Masem]

I once heard (this roughtly around 1995) that when one compares the development cost vs profit as a function of version number, the curve typically breaks even on the 7th revision of a program (was this from Mythical Man-Month?).

Mind you, after the browser wars, which completely broke how version numbering should effectively be done, this is probably no longer true. Version numbering has lost out to commercialization; there's a lot of good examples of where software changes over a 'major' version number could really be classified as 'minor' version changes, at least to some people (photoshop, IE, to name a few), but marketing knows that customers are more likely to purchase an upgrade if its from "x.0" to "x+1.0", as oppsed to "x.0" to "x.1". Additionally, there's been a few hokey version jumps in some programs as to keep them on par with a competitors program (as the parent post alludes to) - just as AMD is trying to keep up with the Megahertz Myth with Intel in naming their new chips.

Re:MSN 8?

[isorox]

That's right, no one else has 11
X11?

Re:MSN 8?

[el_gregorio]

"my ISP goes to 11."

"is that better?"

"well, it's one better, now isn't it?"

"why didn't you just make 10 better, and call it 10?"

"..... this ISP goes to 11."

Re:MSN 8?

[MyHair]

In response to my version number critics:

Okay, okay, there ARE software packages at 11 or higher. I tried (and apparently failed) to inject some Spinal Tap humor into the version number question posed by the parent post of the parent post. (The grandparent post?)

Re:MSN 8?

[MyHair]

Yes, that's it. That's what I was aiming for.

It's been waaaaaaaay too long since I've seen Spinal Tap.

Re:MSN 8?

[tswinzig]

just as AMD is trying to keep up with the Megahertz Myth with Intel in naming their new chips.

Seems to me like AMD is trying to break OUT OF the megahertz myth. They don't advertise the megaherts of their XP processors. Instead, they give each product a number that allows you to compare it to their prime competitor's products, as well as to their products.

And the benchmarks prove it out. I've got a XP 2000+ which is on par with the P4 2Ghz chip.

If I moved up to an XP 3000+ (when that becomes available), I would expect 50% improvement in speed, irregardless of what the megahertz on the chip is... and isn't that the point of breaking out of the mhz myth?

Re:MSN 8?

[Schnapple]

Mind you, after the browser wars, which completely broke how version numbering should effectively be done, this is probably no longer true

Actually I remember some older cases that rendered it somewhat moot a while back. Not surprisingly they involve Microsoft.

When Microsoft made a version of Word for Windows, they called it 1.0 and the successor 2.0. By the time they were to come out with what would have been 3.0, Word for DOS was 6.0, so they called the new Windows version 6.0 as well "so they would match". Of course the (then winning) competitor was WordPerfect, also at version 6.0 (WP's first Windows release was 5.0 or 5.1, to match their DOS version, but they started at 1.0 on platforms like Macintosh or OS/2). At one point in time a version of Microsoft Office would contain many differing versions of the programs (Word 2.0, Excel 4.0, etc.), but by Office 95 they were all set to the same version (7.0) but of course it didn't matter anymore since the year numbering scheme was in effect.

Microsoft released MS-DOS 5.0 and some time after MS-DOS 6.0. Version 6.0 was the first MS-DOS that Microsoft made after their deal with IBM was over, so when IBM released their new PC-DOS they called it Version 6.1, to "avoid confusion" with MS-DOS 6.0. Microsoft then released MS-DOS 6.2, also to "avoid confusion". IBM countered with PC-DOS 6.3, but it didn't really matter anymore since no one used PC-DOS anyway. Really at work here was the "higher version number = better" myth the public has.

Microsoft's development products aren't immune, either. Microsoft's Visual InterDev was 1.0 with Visual Studio 5.0 (I think), but when Visual Studio 97 was released, it was bumped up to 6.0 to match the other releases. InterDev has pretty much been dissolved into the ASP.NET handling features of Visual Studio.NET.

Re:MSN 8?

[tswinzig]

If AMD was truly fighting the MHzMyth, they wouldn't be naming their chips to comparible speeds of the Intel line

I don't think you understand the Mhz Myth. The myth states that the higher the Mhz, the faster the processor. Intel pushes this idea because their chips run at high clock rates.

If a company were going to break out of the megahertz myth, and still sell their products, how would you recommend they do that? AMD's chips run at lower clock rates than comparable P4 chips. So the MhzMyth is working against them, and they had to break out of it.

Their products still need model numbers. Why not give the model numbers some value to consumers? If I want a chip that runs as fast as the Intel P4 2.4Ghz chip, I know that I can get a XP 2400+. The benchmarks have proven this out time and again. If anything, AMD seems to be 'undercutting' their names when compared to Intel's Mhz numbers (perhaps that's why they put a + on the end).

and instead, their "AMD Athlon XP 2100+" would be "AMD Athlon XP 1800"

How exactly are you determining this arbitrary "1800" number? And what would be the point of lowering that number like that? As long as the AMD 3000+ is at least 50% faster than the AMD 2000+, I'll be completely happy with their naming scheme.

Remember that the MHzMyth is propigated by Joe Six-pack, and not the tech sector.

Yeah right, what sector do you work in?

It might not be propagated by the uber-geeks who know better, but the tech sector totally believes it.

Re:MSN 8?

[Dynedain]

Why not just make 10 louder?

Well, you see, uh, ours goes to 11.

Now all we need is Netscape...

[NetRanger]

...to put their army of mascots out there, and then it's Godzilla Versus Mothra all over again.

Re:Now all we need is Netscape...

[stratjakt]

Mothra was the good guy - and the winner, BTW.

Re:Now all we need is Netscape...

[NetRanger]

Certainly not the Good Guy in terms of special effects! :-)

Just think -- MSNthra Versus Mozilla, it couldn't stink any worse than Godzilla in the theaters...

Great Performance Art, I guess

[theRhinoceros]

This sort of thing makes for great corporate performance art, but honestly... does it make the average person want to choose them as their ISP? If not, then they might as well make origami out of their money and set it on fire.

Re:Great Performance Art, I guess

[RobotRunAmok]

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.

Re:Great Performance Art, I guess

[Fugly]

This sort of thing makes for great corporate performance art, but honestly... does it make the average person want to choose them as their ISP? If not, then they might as well make origami out of their money and set it on fire.

Sometimes marketting isn't about making people want your product. Sometimes it's about making sure people know your product exists.

So I'm having a bad day

[Apostata]

Am I the only one secretly wishing all of those butterfly-clad idiots were magically transported to some impoverished shanty-town (like in Bangladesh or Brazil) so they could convince all of the people who are drinking raw sewage in their water how wonderful the benefits of MSN 8 will be?

Courts are the better marketing agencies

[nutshell42]

Is there any cheaper method to get screen time and articles in newspapers than getting sued over nonsensical issues?

Re:And yet it's ok for IBM and Linux?

[sczimme]

No, it was not okay for IBM. Here is an article that explains why:

IBM caught tagging San Fran streets with Linux ads

Re:And yet it's ok for IBM and Linux?

[fafaforza]

IBM got fined for the cleanup.

No Registration Link

[brunes69]

Why these people dont post the no registration required links provided by Google news I don't know

Re:No Registration Link

[brunes69]

No, it's the principal of the thing. Why does /. not allow posting of articles from sites that require registrations to view the articles EXCEPT New York Times? THey say they are protesting the need for registrations, yet they make an exception for them why? It is so hypocritcal. Just like most of the other stuff that goes on around here.

Re:No Registration Link

[gimpboy]

because when slashdot started there was no registration required at the nyt. when they started requiring registration they were grandfathered in. dont get your panties in a wad.

Re:No Registration Link

[GnomeKing]

Why these people dont post the no registration required link provided by making minor modifications to the ones provided byGoogle news, I dont know ;)

Re:No Registration Link

[RobotRunAmok]

It's the New York Friggin' Times, Bunky. Quit whining, register, and get on with your life.

jeezus...

Re:No Registration Link

[brunes69]

What about the Washington Post or ABC news, these didn't have registration required when /. started and they weren't grandfathered in.

Re:No Registration Link

[imadork]

Hey, I registered for the Times. It's free, and they never spam me. Why not register?

Sounds like the Ad agency's fault from the article

[upstateguy]

From the article, the PR firm's lackey said they had a permit, but..

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 :-).

what I don't get

[inteller]

Is why these butterfly outfits are so "frumpy". If they really want to sell they need something that competes with the iMac girl. I want my (female) human butterfly wearing nothing but wings and a smile.

Re:what I don't get

[will_die]

That would a huge improvment.
Currently I just flashbacks of various 'The Tick' episodes.

Re:what I don't get

[MyHair]

But then no one would notice the wings. See? They think these things through. Besides, fat guys work cheaper in advertising.

Re:what I don't get

[SyntheticTruth]

....but....that would be a fairy then, wouldn't it?

And we know that MS avoids any word with the word 'fair' in it.

Re:what I don't get

[vrt3]

You mean like this?

Can't Microsoft do anything original?!!!

[aquarian]

Is there a single, original idea at Microsoft? Can't they come up with *anything* themselves? You know you suck when you're looking to IBM for "hip" inspiration...

Re:Can't Microsoft do anything original?!!!

[telstar]

IBM invented stickers?

Re:Can't Microsoft do anything original?!!!

[FortKnox]

What are you talking about? Graffiti marketing has existed for years. IBM's Linux ad campaign comes to mind, because you read it on Slashdot.

The butterfly guys in costume isn't original either, but its on a scale much larger than I've ever heard about (for an ad, at least).

Re:Can't Microsoft do anything original?!!!

[Capt Dan]

No, but they own the patent.

They need a punching

[pubjames]

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.

I would love to see an equivalent number of guys in penguin suits go beat them up. I'd pay good money to see that.

Re:They need a punching

[radja]

>I would love to see an equivalent number of guys in penguin suits go beat them up. I'd pay good money to see that.

hell, I'd pay to wear one of those penguin suits ;) //rdj

Re:They need a punching

[BilldaCat]

I *have* a penguin suit. let me at them.

it draws women like you wouldn't believe. shame I don't have any photos of when we headed out to this club in baltimore. best $ I ever spent, for sure.

Re:They need a punching

[cscx]

Hmm, let's see, people on rollerblades in skintight suits vs. CowboyNeal-esque folks waddling down the street? I don't think so. Now, if there was snow on the ground, that would be a different story.

Re:They need a punching

[kenp2002]

Oh god I can see it now a rabid Pengiun mascott jumps up the stairs from a subway entrance and jumps 4 of em doing all sorts of Judo and smashing their faces. Then as they lay there bleeding grabbing their faces in horror the pengin throws a few red hats down then escapes down the stairs to flee via the subway.

But down in the murky depths a cute 4 foot tall devil mascot with sneakers waits in the shadows. As the Penguin passes the demon jumps the penguin stabbing the penguin to death with a pitch fork. All is good.

But as the devil tries to get on the subway the police catch up and shoot him dead because they confused him for the pengiun.

Then, as they all lay dead the mascots merge and become one, it shall be called LinBsoft.

Then the super powerful LinBsoft lumbers onto the street where it is promptly hit by a fruit colored Beetle with some goatee sporting graphics designer killing both the driver and LinBsoft. All that was found at the carnage was a single apple that was eaten by a passing dog.

Thee End

Re:They need a punching

[pubjames]

Hmm, let's see, people on rollerblades in skintight suits vs. CowboyNeal-esque folks waddling down the street? I don't think so.

Ah, but you're not taking into account that the penguins would fight with different strategies to the butterflies.

The butterflies would all work together and would fight in exactly the same way. But some of the penguins would stand at the top of flights of stairs and throw things. Others would spread pointy gravel on the ground then give the butterflies a good kicking when they fall over. Pairs of penguins would waddle together holding ropes close to the ground and making the butterflies smash face first into the pavement. Then give them a good kicking. It would be great.

Re:They need a punching

[zio pera]

1) Find someone willing to pay to see guys in penguin suites;

2) Find someone willing to pay to wear penguin suite;

3) Profit !

(Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

Re:They need a punching

[Reziac]

No, no, no. The penguin group comes along afterward and *cleans up* after the messy butterfly group. Now there's a marketing opportunity going to waste even as we speak!

Re:They need a punching

[cscx]

And herring.

Re:They need a punching

[Keith Russell]

I would love to see an equivalent number of guys in penguin suits go beat them up.

Well, I know a few guys in penguin suits, and they can skate, but they won't be around NYC until December.

Re:They need a punching

[Liza]

Those pictures are hysterical. I especially like the sword-wielding penguin on the mall escalator. But I have to admit, I can't actually imagine it drawing women. The kids in the other pictures, yes. Post-puberty women...harder to imagine.

Liza

Re:They need a punching

[BilldaCat]

thanks. i wish i had a camera when I went to baltimore with my roommate this past weekend.. I can't begin to explain it. the power plant area there (general open area with a bunch of nightclubs) is always packed with bachlorette parties, and they -ALWAYS- want a picture with the penguin. we weren't able to walk 5 feet without being stopped by someone with a camera.

i'll have to get some more photos and actually start my own website with it. get some from this coming halloween.. add a toga, sword, and ivy leaves -- emperor penguin. :D

if anyone is wondering, i am a huge pittsburgh penguins fan, so that's why I got the costume.

Re:They need a punching

[seanb]

Penguin suits tend to be a bit bulky for melee combat.

Now, daemon suits on the other hand...

Re:They need a punching

[Alsee]

Babe alert!

-

They've done this before, and should know better

[Zeddicus_Z]

You really think Microsoft would have learned after doing this before and having it backfire on them.

When the Xbox launched here in Australia, Microsoft spent obscene amounts of money on the advertising campaign (it actually began a few months prior to launch). Part of this was to spraypaint the green Xbox X on the sidewalk at pretty much every bus stop in central Sydney. Needless to say, the relevent local councils were not amused.

As far as I know, the responsible parties were ordered by the court to pay for council workers to clean every single spray. However, Microsoft is nothing if not careful, and instead of doing the original grafitti themselves, they'd contracted it to a local, well-known (in the industry) PR company.

Last we heard, poor [company name omitted] were stuck not only with the bill for councils to clean up the Microsoft grafitti, but also the responsability to clean it off themselves (the more they got to, the less council had to do and thus the less they paid).

Penguins eat Butterflies for Breakfast

[Anonymous Coward]

What they really needed was a group of people dressed up as Tux on rollerblades chasing the Butterflies out of town. :)

Re:Penguins eat Butterflies for Breakfast

[Darth RadaR]

What we really need is a bunch of people dressed up as Tux on rollerblades chasing the Butterflies with fly-swatters. :)

Microsoft Forms

[BoBaBrain]

Q: How did you hear about our products?

A:
[] Recomended by a friend
[] Saw ad in magazine
[] Screaming butterflies spoke of them

Re:Microsoft Forms

[BoBaBrain]

Bugger. I missed that one.

I'll change my sig with all due humility.

A Peace Offering to the Radical Islamists

[FreeUser]

Am I the only one secretly wishing all of those butterfly-clad idiots were magically transported to some impoverished shanty-town (like in Bangladesh or Brazil) so they could convince all of the people who are drinking raw sewage in their water how wonderful the benefits of MSN 8 will be?

Quite possibly you were the only one dreaming of that particular scenerio, but now there are a bunch of us enjoying the image as well. :-)

Several colleagues of mine and I are not-so-secretly wishing all of those butterfly-clad candy-asses would be magically teleported into "Taliban Country" (Northern Pakistan or Chechnya), where they could live to fullfillment the roles of "Harem Bitch" they've so obviously aspired to. OK, it isn't Billy Boy's Harem, but still, its a leg up in the business...and they have to start somewhere.

Re:A Peace Offering to the Radical Islamists

[Grishnakh]

I'll do that as soon as Bill does something with his life besides trying to force his insecure, bug-ridden crap down my throat whether I want it or not, using any means (legal or not) possible.

That explains it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw a lot of these in lower Manhattan the other day, and all I could think was "since when does M$ have punk kiddie followers that do this?" Good to know it is adult PR firms just acting like them...

Double-standards?

[EchoMirage]

This is not a troll, but an observation: When it's IBM spray-painting Linux graffiti messages, it's free speech, but when it's Microsoft painting butterflies, it's vandalism?

Re:Double-standards?

[FortKnox]

Its what I've been saying for a long time. Zealotous Linux users are just as bad as complete MS supporters. Closed mindedness happens at both extremes.

But the only replies you (and I) will get is how slashdot is biased and to go elsewhere if you don't like it.

Honestly, Slashdot is a news for nerds site that SUPPORTS Linux. The users are the ones that make it either "Linux, or else". I use both. That means I'm the enemy.

Re:Double-standards?

[megaduck]

Zealotous Linux users are just as bad as complete MS supporters. Closed mindedness happens at both extremes.

Actually, as a long-time MS basher, I know I ceded the moral high ground long ago. You know what? I don't care.

MS has effectively declared war on my favorite technologies, and I feel obliged to retaliate. This isn't about right or wrong, or how open-minded we all are. This is about tarring and feathering MS until they get out of town or reform. This is war, Skippy, and we can all be tolerant and nice to each other when it's over.

Any publicity is good publicity.

[mini me]

"It's illegal," she said, "and they're going to get a lot of publicity for it."

I think that was the whole point of all of this.

Re:Any publicity is good publicity.

[stratjakt]

Think it hurts to appeal to the 'bad-ass anti-establishment' gen-y'ers?

So now IBM is the 'laid back hippie' company, and MSFT is the 'bad assed party guy' company.

Apple is still the "Mack-in-what?" company.

Re:Any publicity is good publicity.

[FreeUser]

I think corporate fines should be based on a percentage of their annual REVENUE. If MS was fined 5% of their revenue for this, fuck yeah they'd sit up and take notice! Keep the dollar amount for the humans.

Good luck.

Clearly NYC politicians were paid off generously (an examination of their portfolios would no doubt be very revealing), in that the city only charged Microsoft a $50.00 fine (much less than IBM was charged before) and graciously "accepted" Microsoft's "Apology".

That was a $50.00 fine in total, not per count, making a laughingstock of the entire anti-graffitti law, and sending a clear message: we in the NYC government like corporate graffitti if our portfolio members or campaign contributors do it, but if individuals (or non-bribing companies) do it, watch out!

What an utter farce.

Google entrance

[Midnight Thunder]

And here is Google's entrance to the NYT article

PR makes no sense!

[timdorr]

Just yesterday there was an XBOX giveaway at my school. It had something do with Microsoft from what I heard, but besides that there was no indication as to what they were trying to sell to me. Now they have men in butterfly suits running around town screaming at the top of their lungs. Yeah.....

I seriously wonder if there's a single person at MS with a clue. (well, maybe the guy that designed solitaire. I love that guy :)

how different is this from graffiti?

[2000 Britneys]

I mean there are laws out there against such things as painting on public buildings and such. Why should MS (tm) be exempt from that? Just because they are a corporation that has oodles of money doesn't mean they are above the law, or does it?

Yeah but at least tux is cool

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not just SF, here in Chicago as well. you can still see the faint image of Tux at the Jackson street subway entrance to the Blue line.

Yeah, but tux is cool. Also, the graffiti was in black (against white concrete), not candy colored.
Most importantly, perhaps, IBM did it first. When they did it it was an original, innovative idea. Microsoft's gaudy re-run is simply so much tasteless, derivative kitch.

It is one thing to do something radical first, and to do it with a little style. It is another thing to copycat with little imaginatino and no style (a garish, gay butterfly logo no less). Promoting a network service even AOLers are smart enough to avoid doesn't help either.

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[Thud457]

"It is one thing to do something radical first, and to do it with a little style. It is another thing to copycat with little imaginatino and no style (a garish, gay butterfly logo no less). Promoting a network service even AOLers are smart enough to avoid doesn't help either."

Ripping off other's clever ideas is what MicroSoft is all about. Hence their "switch" ad written by a golem.

And it's common wisdom in the low end advertizing business that annoying sells. Just look at used car ads on the radio. When you're selling a online service to idiots who don't value their rights, yelling "ME TOO!" as loud as you can is probably an effective strategy.

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[npietraniec]

Is that dumpy looking penguin really that cool or do we just like Linux. I always thought the BSD demon was cool... Tux on the other hand...

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[RobotRunAmok]

Oh, stop! That ridiculous-looking penguin is *NOT* cool, by any stretch of the imagination. What it represents may be cool, but it is the dorkiest symbol in the IT industry.

It was a dorky symbol when it was used by a satellite porn channel in the late-eighties, and you've gotta be pretty weak to symbolize *THAT* and still come across nebish-y.

The charm, such as Tux may have any, lay in its obvious anti-corporate, anti-status symbolism, inasmuch as any company with more than five hundred dollars in its coffers could hire someone to devise a better logo. Tux sort of has that snarky frat-boy, movie-posters-on-the-wall, lamps-made-from-beer-kegs charm.

What, that's not what the Linux movement was going for...?

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[Publicus]

I beg to differ, and I am shocked, SHOCKED at such an assault on our beloved Tux.

I think his appeal is as much visual as it is idealogical. I especially like the IBM interpretation, in fact, I have a banner on the side of my cube with the IBM "peace love linux" design.

I quote Lyle Lovett:

Penguins are so sensitive to my needs.

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[jonmay]

I have a Linux Fund mbna credit card that I got at LWE 3 years ago. It has a picture of tux on it. I'm not much of a linux advocate, and I have no idea if the fund is doing any well, but I like the credit card because about 20% of the time I make a face-to-face purchase I get this reaction:

"Oh, isn't that cute!"

So that doesn't necessarily make the logo cool, but it does make it somewhat attractive.

Only once have I gotten this reaction:

"Oh, cool, linux!"

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[Wakko Warner]

Most importantly, perhaps, IBM did it first. When they did it it was an original, innovative idea.

Yeah, nobody had thought to write on shit that didn't belong to them before IBM did it.

Ever visit a ghetto?

- A.P.

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[IamTheRealMike]

Sure, tux is a great mascot! He is cute, we've probably just got too used to seeing him. He is also capable of "actions", ie you can dress him up in a suit for business, and he can do things that the regular Windows or MacOS logo cannot.

Of course we like Linux too, but Tux as a logo is pure genius - who can resist asking what the cute penguin is?

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[susano_otter]

According to the dictionary, "ghetto" has nothing to do with concentration camps, and quite a lot to do what the parent poster was talking about. Perhaps you meant to say you've never been inside a school.

The amazing part is how pedantic you are, for someone so ignorant.

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[RAMMS EIN]

Demons are cool? Now that's new to me...

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[susano_otter]

And yet the Nazis weren't the first to implement ghettos, ghettos aren't exclusively--or even primarily--related to Nazi concentration camps, and finally, ghettos have long been associated with exactly the kind of neighborhood the parent was referring to.

Thus your argment, "stevejsmith has never been in a ghetto, because ghettos were a Nazi tool for exterminating Jews, and that was all before stevejsmith's time", seems quite senseless.

It's the middle clause that does it, really. Nazi use of "ghettos" to concentrate undesireables is really a minor footnote on the history of these neighborhoods (which probably goes back over 400 years).

The word "ghetto" has been in use as a valid term for a particular kind of neighborhood since long before the Third Reich. The word is still in use today as a valid term for a particular kind of neighborhood. Does your knowledge of the world really begin and end with the Second World War?

Re:Yeah but at least tux is cool

[Wakko Warner]

Although it is not exclusive to Nazi camps, it is primarily used to describe them.

Yes, I'm sure that, when Method Man describes himself as hailing "from the ghetto", he means he was born 60 years ago in a Nazi prison neighborhood.

Holy fuck, man...

- A.P.

Video of Bill Gates in butterfly outfit...

[httpamphibio.us]

I've read on a couple sites that during the video Gates showed at the MSN8 release he was in a butterfly costume doing something... anyone have a link to this?

Butterfly Effect

[seven89]

A butterfly flapping its wings in Manhattan can cause a hurricane in Redmond, Washington.

Pardon?

[sehryan]

MSN, the "Microsoft operating system required" internet service

As opposed to AOL, the "Microsoft operating system required" internet service.

Re:Pardon?

[GutBomb]

microsoft makes Mac OS X?

Re:Pardon?

[IamTheRealMike]

I seem to recall reading Jeremy White of codeweavers saying that the Sherman act prevented them from tying a non monopoly product to a monopoly product. If they explictly block people who don't use Windows, isn't that an anti-trust violation?

Not exactly vandalism

[nicedream]

From the article:

The butterflies found on vertical surfaces were made of flimsy plastic, held in place by static electricity and easily removable. 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.

Since the article specifically says the butterflies can be easily removed, I don't know if I'd call this vandalism. It's certainly less damaging than what IBM did in San Fran. Typical /. anti-MS sensationalism.

Of course, it is dispicable for a company (MS, IBM, whoever) to just take over public property for the purpose of their advertising campaigns. There are proper ways of advertising, and this isn't one of them.

Re:Not exactly vandalism

[greenhide]

Yes, it was vandalism.

They may be "easily removeable" in the sense that it doesn't require crowbars or solvents to remove, but that doesn't mean that it still doesn't require labor -- workers that the city must pay for to remove these buterflies.

The article states that the stickers obstructed travel for those in wheelchairs or similarly physically disabled. They had to be removed to ensure the safety of those people. Thus, in a sense, the stickers obviously were a threat to public safety, although that threat was limited in its scope and damage. Possibly the worst thing that would have happened is someone would slip and break a hip, but hey -- wouldn't that be great advertising for Microsoft, too? They could offer the poor invalid a laptop with a complimentary 3 month subscription to MSN 8.

Also, let's compare Microsoft to, say, some activist who puts up a bunch of leaflets protesting the war in Iraq.

Do you honestly think the activist would receive a letter saying, "We hope this was just a misunderstanding"? Would the activist pretend that they had received authorization to put up the signs?

From the article:

A single summons was issued, with a $50 penalty, though each butterfly could have been subject to a $50 fine, said Tom Cocola, the assistant commissioner for public affairs at the transportation agency. He said the city's chief goal was seeing to it that the decals are removed.

I say, make them pay for each one. They can certainly afford to.

What infuriates me about Corporate "guerilla" advertising is that it appropriates the methods of groups who use them because they don't have the money for traditional advertising, and because even if they did they would probably not want to support the corporate media system by running commercials on TV or buying full page ads in Newsweek. On the other hand, Microsoft and other companies are resorting to guerilla advertising because people are so jaded and don't respond to traditional Corporate advertising anymore.

Advertising used to be (way back before I was born) about letting consumers know about a product, and what it offered to the consumer in and of itself (Got Dandruff? Try Listerine! I'm not kidding -- that was in an ad from the forties or so). Nowadays, Corporate advertising is attempting to do nothing less than sell us our identity. Our choices, from the soda we drink or the car we drive to the shirts we wear or, yes, the ISP we use -- reflect not simply the need or desire for those products, but rather who we are as people (I'm a Chevrovel Cavalier Dr. Pepper Macintosh myself). However, this is backfiring these days because really most of the identies they offer are pretty much the same. Hence, the need to explore new forms of advertising, such as guerilla advertising.

Suddenly Microsoft, with a 90%+ market share of all software and the biggest, richest corporation in America is seen as rebellious, as deviant, as non-conformist. You just can't pay for that kind of advertising -- you also have to plan it carefully and then make sure the media propogates it.

Microsoft should use its money and influence to introduce positive forms of publicity. How about offering free MSN 8 to various charity organizations?

Another obligatory bug v windshield joke

[TheConfusedOne]

Well, with the ever increasing use of tinted windows in cars these days maybe they could have turned the corner and ran into... ...wait for it... ...the blue windscreen of death.

Sorry.

The ripoffs just keep on rolling.

[phillymjs]

First, they steal the Switch campaign.

Now, they bite off The Bugaloos to advertise MSN.

What next, "Sigmund the C# Monster"?

Better yet, there used to be a kids' show called "The Great Space Coaster," and there was an 'evil' character on it who went by the name M.T. Promises-- that seems about right for Microsoft marketing.

~Philly

Apple did this first...

[writermike]

Perhaps this is more of an opinion than fact, but I really believe this is/was Apple's un-stated marketing campaign. Apple has always handed out stickers of various types and these things do show up in a lot of places.

Perhaps the difference here is that MS (and, maybe, to some degree, IBM) actively promotes spreading the message with the stickable items. To my knowledge, Apple never said, "Hurry to your local bus stop and stick up your Apple logos."

I never minded the Apple or IBM stickers. But, as usual, someone has to push moderation into excessive.

Interestingly, on I-95 around Boston, there is a train bridge that advertises a show on a local radio station. What's different here, however, is that it's SPRAY-PAINTED on the bridge. It's not just graffiti, it's graffiti with marketing chutzpah!

MSN Butterfly Ad On this Article!

[MyHair]

Did anyone else get the MSN ad with the silhouetted guy with the MSN butterfly suit IN the linked NYT article?

I did.

What's sad is that the extra publicity given by the NYT article, an angry NYC and Slashdot may be perceived as good. What's that marketing saying? There's no such thing as bad publicity? Makes me sick.

Re:MSN Butterfly Ad On this Article!

[Winterblink]

Annoying ads on the internet? That's hardly new. Check out ign.com. Some days you'll click a link to view a story and get an interstitial that executes a pop-under when it continues on to the article which puts a pop-up on the screen in addition to a massive flash ad covering half the document window. The story itself is 80% advertising banners, mostly flash. Horrible, horrible site.

Re:MSN Butterfly Ad On this Article!

[MyHair]

my girlfriend experienced a freaky butterfly icon chasing her mouse cursor around the weather channel site...

I checked and got nothing, but then realized I was using Mozilla and tried again with IE 6. No cursor-chasing butterfly for me, but the big Flash ad was the same MSN fat guy butterfly silhouette.

Plus in the upper-right corner it says "Sponsored by MSN 8". However, the lower-right corner says "Partner All-New AOL 7.0 1000 FREE Hours!" and the lower-left corner says "Powered by WorldCom". Sheesh!

Re:Sounds like the Ad agency's fault from the arti

[Cutriss]

It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has blamed others for their own mistakes in marketing...

Or...

[tunabomber]

...MSN 2002 to be many, many steps ahead. I mean 8 ? Romans still roamed the earth then.

Damn GeoCities!

[phillymjs]

Here's a link to pics of M.T. Promises that will hopefully continue to work (he's in the two pics on the left).

~Philly

You are the mouthpiece for MSN...

[Vermy]

I like the title of this article. Vandlizing. Very "professional" journalism. LOL. Anyway.

For everyone in here having a little fit about "this is stupid" and "does this work" is falling into the whole genius of the marketing ploy. This isn't to persuade someone to buy the product, this is an effort to generate mass press for next to free (minus some self dignity). They are getting you to TALK ABOUT THEIR PRODUCT. Now you guys will run around to your fellow coworkers "Did you see the stupid Microsoft butterfly thing?". And they will tell another employee, who actually isn't technically savy, and might find it interesting, go look it up, and sign up for it. In effect, you, who disdain microsoft, are being used to help them secure customers.

Let's think about it, they have an entire article on slashdot, a pretty pro Linux group, to discuss the matter about them dressing up a bunch of people for a few bucks and putting them on rollerblades. But the old saying is true, the only bad press is no press at all. The IBM/LINUX graffiti thing proved that. They received TONS of press for just a few, inexpensive pictures of the Tux.

Marketing 101. Take a course, you may like it.

getting of so light

[cposs]

"A single summons was issued, with a $50 penalty, though each butterfly could have been subject to a $50 fine" (emphasis mine)

what?! good lord! if any individual had done this, say with something as simple as a "hello, my name is:" sticker with an email address, they would be fined thousands. sure, it's not as permanent as ibm's spraypaint, but it's not like microsoft can't afford the fines.

Funny that...

[rogue ronin]

hmm.... Microsoft is advertising by using bugs. Ironic, isn't?

Well, at least it grabbed some attention...

[MoThugz]

not to mention the fact that it is environmentally friendly. Why did I brought up this point?

Well, because I've seen some poor form of advertising from a rising star of the PC industry . Why do I call it poor? Because they think that it is a good idea to include a pamphlet of their latest offering on every issue of free daily newspapers in Singapore. Basically it's an ad sleeve covering the paper.

Most of the time people simply pull it out and throw it into the bin. Which is OK in my opinion except that 1/2 an hour later, almost all the bins in the MRT (mass rapid transit) station gets filled to the brim and adverts are flying everywhere. And those marketing guys from that company doesn't seem to bother, or perhaps they are all so bloody rich and never use public transport anyway.

Before you mod my rant as offtopic, think of the essence of this post which is about advertising (what MS and hyperlinked company are doing) and it's implication on people and the environment.

P/S: I do not work for neither company, and all opinions expressed are my own.

The Tick

[jck2000]

Yes, you beat me to it. Or his moth friend (Arthur?)

Re:The Tick

[Keith Russell]

That was my first thought when I saw a "butterfly man" ad on TV last night: The Moth on acid. I expected MSN's new slogan to be "Not in the face! Not in the face!"

Re:The Tick

[__aaahtg7394]

Spoon! Spoon! Spoon!

(see above Developer posts)

Bug on Windshield jokes?

[dbretton]

I think it would be more like Place all bug on Windows jokes here

or perhaps: Place all bugs in Windows jokes here

Re:Bug on Windshield jokes?

[c1pher]

I think it would be more like Place all bug on Windows jokes here
or perhaps: Place all bugs in Windows jokes here

..bugs crawl through open Windows? :)

Re:Bug on Windshield jokes?

[Jhan]

..bugs crawl through open Windows? :)

OpenWindows? There are no bugs in SunOS/Solaris! Well, except... And that... Mumble...

I guess the sun shining through our open windows reveal the bugs all to well. ;-)

SPOOOOOON!

[Waab]

30-40 guys and gals in butterfly suits

They're not butterflies...they're moths.
And they're on their way to fight the Uncommon Cold.

Re:SPOOOOOON!

[poot_rootbeer]

If only a 30-foot Grace Hopper were roaming the streets of Midtown with a giant can of Flit...

Despite all my rage I'm still just a bat in a cage

[sporty]

At least they didn't try to use the Smashing Pumpkins song, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings".

Maybe they would have wanted that :)

Where's the Linux retort?

[dbretton]

Tomorrow I want to see 60 fat little circus midgets dressed up like penguins skateboarding through downtown NYC, screaming at the top of their lungs, and throwing rocks at all the windows:

"We're short! We're fat! We can't fly! We're pissed! And Windows sucks!"

Re:Where's the Linux retort?

[miffo.swe]

*laughing*

Hey, you made me squirt cofee all over my monitor!

I imagined it, that was stupid considering i had just taken a mouthful och cofee.

Re:Where's the Linux retort?

[Ziviyr]

I can hear the penguins shouting...:

"Don't place faith in Microsoft things
Microsoft things will fail you

A hurricane triggered by a butterfly's wings...
Conspirators betray you." :-)

Re:They've done this before, and should know bette

[GutBomb]

i would have to say that this has nothing to do with microsoft but a stupid ad agency. the ad agency was not forced to go with microsoft's idea (if it was even their idea). The ad agency are the ones that painted the Xs and they should have known the local laws first.

What's worse...

[airrage]

On Several web-sites, most notably www.weather.com, if you get to certain page(s), your icon turns to an MSN(tm) butterfly. I have no problem with Microsoft per se, ip so facto, but that's annoying.

Re:What's worse...

[LinuxHam]

On [..] www.weather.com, [..] your icon turns to an MSN(tm) butterfly

Which is funny considering it's a Linux cluster.

NYC Cries "It's Illegal!"

[zentec]

Since when has Microsoft obeyed laws?

Stupidity

[limekiller4]

From the article:
"I trust and hope that these offensive activities are not the authorized acts of your organization's employees and agents," Mr. Fernandez [Assistant counsel of the Transportation Department] wrote..."

Does Mr. Fernandez perhaps believe that Microsoft employees paid for thousands of 20" Microsoft butterflies with Microsoft advertising out of their own pockets?

OF COURSE IT WAS AN AUTHORIZED ACT YOU TWIT!

Re:Stupidity

[Darth RadaR]

OTOH, I wonder if MS is going to find a sneaky way to make the promotion company take the fall.

The other boroughs...

[Elvisisdead]

I'm envisioning a group of 50 beat down, tattered and torn butterflies that got the short straw and had to skate through the Bronx and Queens.

Re:And yet it's ok for IBM and Linux?

[Melantha_Bacchae]

scorp1us wrote:

> I seem to remember a time when IBM went chalking
> the streets with Peace, Love, and Linux phrases
> and logos....

That may not have been legal either, but at least it was better intentioned. The hearts, peace signs and penguins were supposed to vanish by themselves with the next rain (alas, that did not happen, but they tried).

Microsoft is plastering plastic signs of some size (12 to 20 inches) on walls and pavements. Even if they are easy to remove, that is still a lot of (non-biodegradable?) plastic littering the city. I'd get them for being a bunch of litterbugs. ;)

Today's weather for New York: a stiff tail wind as an angry Moth goddess blows the pretenders on their skates right out of town. ;)

(Don't worry, with those plastic wings and skates, it won't take much of a tail wind at all. Good New Yorkers should enjoy a refreshing breeze.)

On December 14, 1996, Mothra resurrected a charred Apple sapling ("Mosura" 1996).
On December 14, 2001, Mothra returned to see its fruit ("Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Ghidora: Daikaiju Soukougeki").
OS X Jaguar: truly the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.

Truth in Advertising

[cordrg]

Does anyone else find it appropriate that microsoft is using a bug as the icon for their new promotion?

Re:Truth in Advertising

[Niles_Stonne]

Does anyone else find it appropriate that microsoft is using a bug as the icon for their new promotion?

Right, and Linux has a round flightless bird...

MSN 8 vs. .mac

[redherring22]

Yes, this advertising campaign is a very cheap, very troll way to get lots of people to notice you. But does anybody see similarities to this service and Apple's '.mac' that people get so worked up about?
check it out (yay, give MS more attention!):
MSN 8 - Software Only
Their cheapest MSN 8 service costs almost as much as a new .mac account, a little cheaper if you pay for a whole year, but what does it offer? Hotmail with virus protection? Does MS actually have a better SPAM filter than Hotmail's (which does about nothing). And do you get ad-free e-mail?

...suddenly, .mac ain't looking so bad!

Re:MSN 8 vs. .mac

[Utopia]

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.

You'd reckon that AOLTW bulilding...

[afflatus_com]

...would screen-print a giant appropriate response mozilla advertisement about butterfies and drape it down the side of the building.

My recommendation:
http://inconnu.isu.edu/~ink/new/humor/mozilla1280. jpg

Re:Courts (MS should know)

[gosand]

Is there any cheaper method to get screen time and articles in newspapers than getting sued over nonsensical issues?

Or monopolistic practices? Or railed on by the U.S. Department of Justice, or a group of U.S. States? When you have some of the deepest pockets around, I guess you don't really care. It would be the same as someone suing me for pocket lint.

Subvert the message

[puppetluva]

I live in New York. They put all of their selfish trash around my living space and I've decided to use it against them. I'm turning their advertisment vandalism into word-of-mouth sabotage. (word-of-mouth is the best way to get the message out, right?)

I have gone from disliking Microsoft to hating them for spoiling my living environment so to retaliate. . . Everytime someone brings up this abject vandalism in conversation, I make a very specific, understandable point about how Microsoft vandalizes the economic environment and acts as a regular sabateur and law-breaker when it serves their petty interest. It may be annoying to them (heck, I may seem annoying to them by doing it), but these people know that I know what I'm talking about and they start hating Microsoft too. They are reminded of it everytime they see that butterfly trash too. . . hundreds of times a day. I've even heard some people spread the word (of disgust) ;)

Is this the intended effect? Just because we remember it and talk about it, does that serve their intentions? Everyone recognizes and talks about swastikas at some time in their lives, but I wouldn't call that "buzz" positive.

Fun?

[PhotoGuy]

Man, it almost makes me physically sick when I see a cut-throat and ruthless corporate monopoly like Microsoft, dumping money into stunts like this to try and appear "fun" and "hip."

It's like Mr. Burns trying to improve his image. Gates should just hire a stunt monkey like Homer, tossing money at him to rob him of his dignity, instead. Baby make boom boom.

MSN/Disney in cahoots - to spy on kids

[gosand]

I submitted this story but it got rejected. It details more about the Disney/MSN deal, and the service they are offering. (Disney themed IE - wheeee). This is a total deal with the devil, except nobody can figure out who is who. A couple of choice quotes:

"It's a real coup," Gates said, sharing a stage in the autumn-tinged park with Eisner and a pair of extras in Mickey and Minnie Mouse suits.

"We're going to gain a lot of share here," Gates said. "We're going to make a lot of consumers happy."

Somehow the first parts of that overshadow the last sentence.

And this one pretty much tells it all...

Microsoft intends its new software to cater to parents, who can receive a weekly e-mail detailing their children's online activity, including Web sites they visited or tried to visit and the e-mail addresses and MSN Messenger accounts of people with whom they corresponded.

Re:MSN/Disney in cahoots - to spy on kids

[teamhasnoi]

Microsoft intends its new software to cater to parents, who can receive a weekly e-mail detailing their children's online activity, including Web sites they visited or tried to visit and the e-mail addresses and MSN Messenger accounts of people with whom they corresponded.

Hey kids! Mom reading your diary? Dad recording your phone conversations? Get back at them by installing MSN 8! Thanks to Microsoft's new partnership with Disney and the general cluelessness of your parents, you can spy on them like never before! Have emails sent to you detailing your Mom and Dad's web activities! Worried Dad might send you to military school? Mom having an affair with her 'aromatherapist'? Find out for sure with Microsoft's new spyware - MSN 8!

They'll never know because *you're in charge* of installing software, reinstalling Windows, and upgrading the family PC!

It's never been so easy!

Act now, and you'll get a Digitally Restricted copy of 'Mickey Mouse's - How I Fucked Hollywood, and Lived to Squeek About It'. A sordid tale of government corruption, Congresswhores, Copyright Extentions, and the Legal Defense of Public Domain works as if Mickey himself wrote them!

Hurry! Sign up now, before Linux is ready for the Desktop!

Bill Gates

[Reziac]

[inserts Bill Gates into same image]
[adds cream pie for authentic Bill Gates look]
[runs away screaming]

Spraychalked?

[Gerry Gleason]

I've never heard of this type of thing, although it would be perfect for this application.

The cluster of them around the CDW in Chicago is still there over a year later, so I think it was actually paint at least in this case. None of the reports I heard about this said it was chalk, which makes it a bit more of an aggressive act toward people with homes and businesses in the immediate area.

Re:Spraychalked?

[gimpboy]

you're right about the chicago stuff. evidently it was supposed to be done with biodegradable chalk:

http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/7549 71

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.

Re:Spraychalked?

[CoolVibe]

Fine, you don't like seeing adverts evereywhere you go. Fine, that's nice. But...

Why do you advertise in you sig then?

Brand Awareness

[Big Sean O]

"It's illegal," she said, "and they're going to get a lot of publicity for it."

That may have been the point. "It's a tremendous opportunity," Ms. Lacter said, "for us to build brand awareness."

So they intend to make Microsoft synonymous with breaking the law? Sorry, it's been done. Anyone ever hear of their illegal monopoly?

I think they've succeeded. Dilbert says Microsoft is the weasleiest [sp?] company, so Ms. Lacter's strategy must be working!

At a $50 fine per ad, if there is one ad per every man woman and child in NYC (say 10 million), it will be $500,000,000. I think Bill Gates made that before breakfast...

Re:Brand Awareness

[Ziviyr]

So they intend to make Microsoft synonymous with breaking the law? Sorry, it's been done. Anyone ever hear of their illegal monopoly?

Never mind all the illegal operations their OS has performed. :-)

Re: High School P(r)ep Rallies

[i_am_nitrogen]

You know, if pep rallies had no influence on some people, they wouldn't be held...

It's kind of like that old saying, "Simple minds are easily amused," except in this case its, "Simple minds are easily advertized to." Too bad it's not as funny with the second wording.

The butterfly logo ...

[dougmc]

You know, every time I see that logo, I think of Arthur from The Tick.

(You can't see it in these pictures, but yes, he does have wings. Good pictures of him seem to be hard to find. images.google.com found a few, but none were really good ...)

I saw a picture of one of the butterfly suits

[krinsh]

a couple days ago on CNN or Yahoo... I just figured that's the punishment the PR lady got for getting caught during Microsoft's last advertising scheme (i.e. the 'anti-switch' campaign...)

Not for long

[alernon]

> "Microsoft operating system required" internet service.

Not for long

Here in Montreal

[TheTomcat]

They had coccoons hanging around the city.. the next day (launch, yesterday), they mysteriously turned into the MSN butterfly.

And they have goons handing out magnets.

S

Is this wierd??

[ianjk]

"STEP 3: Cancel your previous account
If you currently have an AOL account, the TrueSwitch service will be able to cancel your account for you -- just follow the simple instructions. "

MSN comes with a service that cancels your aol account for you... I wonder what else it can do?

Re:Is this wierd??

[Utopia]

It can also inform all people in your address book (or your selection) about the email address change.

No, just 1 and I have the perfect actor

[hey!]

Wallace Shawn.

Could there be a better Linux spokesman?

Re:No, just 1 and I have the perfect actor

[Surak]

Wallace Shawn.

Hmmmm... Yeah, I mean he's already involved with Mozilla. :-P

Come again?

[tswinzig]

Are you sure about that?

It most obviously is a troll, but I'll bite

[ACNeal]

No news media outlet is in business to educate.

Specifically, slashdot doesn't educate, it just points to places that aren't in the business to educate.

Slashdot, and those participants that acutally have a clue, know that slashdot sole business model is to get people see their advertising. Although they do get people to respond to news about the latest breakthrough in particle accelerators, they realize that more people view pages if they are encited.

So they bait the lesser intelligence among us (and I post a lot, so I am obviously in this group) with baseless flattery (news for NERDS). Then they keep us around by offering less than stimulating, but generally highly charged religious discussions.

In other words, your post was obviously a troll. What aren't obvious trolls, but are definitely trolls, are the majority of articles that make the front page. Welcome to every newspaper, tv news program, or radio program that is profitable.

I understand this, and I still show up daily to get my blood pressure up about a bunch of shit that doesn't matter. One of these days I will burst my aorta, or get a clue. Either way, I will stop reading slashdot... One of these days.

the tick?

[fermion]

First, I think this advertising reeks of lame attempt of mainstream corporation attempts to be edgy. The result is uninteresting, derivative, and insulting.

Speaking of derivative, is Ben Edlund getting paid for this, or do you think he will sue. The 'butterfly' is so clearly a fusion of the The Tick and Arthur.

Has Anyone Seen Butterfly Man?

[NeuroManson]

I think the guy who owns The Tick needs to contact a lawyer, other than the coloration of the wings, and the style of antennae, one would think him to have more than just a passing resemblance to Arthur (AKA The Moth)...

Microsoft OS *NOT* required

[jpmahala]

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...

Oh but for a gigantic jar of ether and a net....

[Bvardi]

Hmm... makes me wonder as well, would penguins eat butterflies? :)

Here's a Link

[Compulawyer]

From the Washinton Post - an article that discusses M$'s new marketing blitz for MSN.

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."

Re:photos?

[Kredal]

Butterflies in Seattle

Utter Arrogance

[whereiswaldo]

The city of New York (imagine the lawyers they could unleash) was nice enough to only fine Microsoft $50 and tell them to clean the mess up. Microsoft, in all of its infinite arrogance, "... insisted that it was authorized to place the decals.

"There are permits for everything". Uh huh - does that mean filling someone's pocket with money so they'll turn the other way? Why can't we know who it is?

This is very a bad show of sincerity given Steve Balmer's statement regarding the Microsoft Switch Campaign fiasco. I am fully expecting more events like these to take place. Microsoft's dirty tactics are alive and well.

Re:Better wheelchairs needed

[Junta]

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).

did my part

[consumer]

I work in Soho, and I ripped about 8 of these off the sidewalks around my building the night they were put up. If our own Department of Justice has found Microsoft to be a criminal organization, why should I have to look at their crap when I go out for a cup of coffee? It's offensive.

Re:did my part

[Compulawyer]

I'd love to get one of those from you - if you care to part with it, email me at compulawyer@NOSPAM.yahoo dot com -- removing the obvious anti-spam measures from the address, of course.

Our turn!

[Anonymous Custard]

Ok, Bill Gates sent his beautiful minions to deface NYC, so to all you NY slashdotters, let's gather together and raid Bill's mansion, and paste up Apple and Tux stickers all over his walls! We'll also run through his house screaming at 4am about the greatness of open source development.

Visually, it doesn't bother me that they put the butterflys around, they're pretty. But morally, this is a blatant slap in the face at NYC's regulations, and it's a company saying "we're above the law, we're more powerful than you." If a hacker deface the NYC website and got caught, how many years would he get in jail?

I've seen the bastards

[Superfreaker]

They had at least 30 rollerbladers (i.e. fruitbooters) skating around dressed like purple butterflies holding signs. Apparently no one liked them as they said "no one likes us".

Then one got clipped by a taxi.
Damn butterflies.

The Linux butterfly

[kitzilla]

If NY had been papered with *Linux* butterflies, we'd be applauding.

Whether or not it's imitative, this is a brilliant bit of marketing. They're getting millions of dollars worth of free press, risking only tiny fines.

I doubt the sidewalk butterflies are particularly dangerous to anyone--even wheelchair users. Given the real hazards of New York living, indignant city officials should probably find something more productive to angst about.

I'd never subscribe M$N or use Window$ on my own machines, but credit where it's due. Effective marketing.

A bad reputation will put you out of business.

[twitter]

"It's Miller Time, let's go get a Bud." is what millions of beer drinkers did with a Miller ad campain. Miller, now SABMiller, was not very happy.

Kind of like this current flap. Those that know will tell you they are both pisswater anyway, but it's much easier to switch your pisswater than it is to change your email address. That and your beer won't try to take over your fridge, your mail, your air conditioner and so on ad nauseum.

Bad publicity will kill your business. A good reputation takes years to build. A bad reputation can be made in a day, it only takes one lie. Micrsoft has a really really bad reputation and it's well deserved. This well deserved lack of trust will kill them as others are more trusted and have better reputations.

Paintball Guns and NYC

[CharlieG]

Paintball guns are illegal in NYC, just like BB guns, and any firearm without a permit

Want to take a felony rap?

Coming soon to a region near you...

[bobdotorg]

"It's a tremendous opportunity," Ms. Lacter said, "for us to build brand awareness."

Build brand awareness through pollution. Great. What's next? MS Sniper?

Faking grassroots

[InodoroPereyra]

Ok I am late to the party, but hopefully someone will read this :-)

IMHO what they are really looking for is to fake some grassroots soport for MS. For one thing, the common view of MS is as a huge monster representing the darkest part of the corporate US. They are trying to change this and show some kind of (paid-for) street presence, grassroot support, a popularity that they will never get acting the way they do. In short, they are trying to clean up their public image. Yeah, like when astroturfing.

Penguin's turn

[scharkalvin]

Lets plaster those RedHat bumper stickers all over the place. Cover up the MS butterflies with RedHats!

Re:Penguin's turn

[Chris Johnson]

Please don't :)

How're you going to ask THEM to stop it, if you're doing the same thing?

I use MSN and I have Linux

[Zebbers]

No problem at all. Straight PPP. My MSMessenger pumps through gaim.

Am I just lucky?

Creative 'modifications'/'defacement' of the ads?

[stefanlasiewski]

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.

passing by

[Alejo]

they barely escaped the CD shooting from the AOL building. damn!

You're right

[0x0d0a]

That says that the fines aren't in line.

What they need to do is add a penalty for vandalism done in the name of a profit, and fine them the amount of money estimated made.

It's obviously getting more widespread, as advertising agencies realize that the damages are "worth the action".

What's the last thing...

[spun]

to go through a butterfly's mind when it hits your windshield?

It's rollerblades!

Pics of the mutant butterfly freaks

[CaptainFlyingToaster]

Warning: Visting the link below might lead to Ark-of-the-Covenantesque melting of flesh, hair loss, emesis, and a sudden urge to buy every Michael Bolton CD ever published:

http://www.portlandskate.com/bfly2001.htm

Bias

[CAIMLAS]

Why is it called marketting when IBM does it, but vandalism when MS does? Does monopoly status have any play in the determining?

Guys in costume

[pommiekiwifruit]

When I walked around some computer games show, I saw some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles running around, fully done up in foam costume. Also I saw Mario walking around. I kept thinking, you've got to jump on their shells man, you might get a gold coin... I guess he wasn't being paid enough.

OTOH some football mascots have had punch-ups.

Re:Works Here: Re:MSN Butterfly Ad On this Article

[MyHair]

Yup, I saw it that time. It still has the large MSN 8 ad on the side AND the Partner AOL 7.0 link in the bottom right.

What's funny is this link won't even load in Mozilla 1.1 for me. The main page loaded fine, but this one just has the spinning "page loading" icon for a couple of minutes before I get bored and stop it.

I was curious how they did this becase I thought you had to use a plugin like Comet Cursor (=spyware) to do this. But they did it in Javascript. The 3rd <script> tag from the bottom is the group of functions that does it.

This page is a 58KB compilation of Javascript that does thing like manipulate many cookies and tries to figure out if it's your birthday. (I assume you have to have a user account/profile of some sort with them for them to know that.) The function name for the greeting (birthday, day of week, etc) is called function hugMe(); I thought that was cute. I can't quite figure out what function doIntercept does, though. I suppose all this Javascript is why Mozilla won't load it for me.

Re:Paint Tree

[low-k]

IBM didn't do it first. I lived in Manhattan from 1994-1998, and I saw spray painted ads on the sidewalks back then (and it was certainly *not* chalk!). That's not to mention all of the other crazy stuff that people paint on the sidewalks. (I don't know if it's there anymore, but there used to be painted footsteps that went on for blocks in the east village, and then a few weeks or months later, someone painted tools (yeah, like hammers and wrenches) along side the footsteps.) I think the first ad I ever saw painted on a NY sidewalk was from a sneaker company or shoe store, but it definitely wasn't nike.

Reminds me of the SNL skit with Guiliani which was a fake commercial about his new crack down on graffiti. If they saw your tag on a wall or somewhere, a special police anti-graffiti division would spray paint the word "sucks" under your tag. (and for multiple-time offenders, they'd have a special police artist paint "sucks" in the same exact style as your tag.) It'd be funny if someone painted or even just sharpie'd "sucks" onto all of the butterflies.

4th Street San Francisco

[billstewart]

You can still see remains of them around 4th & Harrison (SouthEast corner), and around 4th & Folsom. They cleaned up a lot of them, but some of it just didn't come off.

Im as anti-microsoft as the next guy but

[Hott of the World]

Im sure Im not the only one typing on this site using MSN. I heard of other companies such as IBM or AT&T doing things like this a while back, anyone here remember better?

Re:Im as anti-microsoft as the next guy but

[Ziviyr]

I lost any interest in considering MSN as not being totally evil when I was emailing a user and was getting multi day delays along with the occasional server out of memory bounce.

I'm also easily ticked off whenever a windows update resets the default page to MSN...

Predate them!

[oever]

This is what a lizard would do to a butterfly.

M$ would be wiser to choose a seal as a logo animal.

I want my

[ces]

DDT

Damned butterflies

[Alien Being]

Anyone have a .NET?

Yeah.. And campus harassment.

[sg_oneill]

Yeah. I work at the Murdoch Uni student union (Australia), and MS contracted some sort of campus-marketing PR firm to go and poster up the Uni.
Yeah. All fine. We aproved, and let em use the tavern for a demo.
Concurently a bunch of activist dudes did there own poster-up basically telling people to boycot the "X-BUX". We where cool on that too. Perhaps even more, since we are a linux/mac organisation.
However we got word that some of those kids had been personally harrassed by people , *possibly* associated (Don't sue me!) with the campaign.
Angry phone calls. All that. It appeared that much of this was *not* done by MS but, apparently, by the marketing company. I tell you, the demo went ahead, but we'll think twice before letting em on campus again. Not verry nice.
(Oh and campus-marketing people;- f*k off!)

Fascinating...

[Chris Johnson]

This, and the related rollerbladers, are an amazing picture of Microsoft psychology.

If someone is just starting out, desperate, trying to promote their thing, they may do things like this- law be damned. The idea is partly to somehow GET attention, and partly it's a guerrila, "we're tiny and desperate and cool" sort of thing. The idea is, someone sees your schtick, is shocked, and then thinks, 'whoa, that's pretty edgy, they could get arrested and they're in my face anyway. Do I blow the whistle or listen to what they have to say?' It's a _danger_ trip, the idea is it's a struggling little company trying for attention, who could easily be busted for their shenanigans, but they have so much balls they're doing it anyway. It's very punk, in its way.

This is why Microsoft is particularly drawn to this sort of thing. They see themselves as the struggling little startup.

The problem is, they are NOT. They can vandalize anything they want, have hired rollerbladers going anywhere they want (including 'no rollerblading' zones), and they're running no risk. Any fine means nothing compared to the scale they try to operate on. The risk of vandalism and 'anti-authority' behavior is absolutely nil, for them.

As such, it is particularly obnoxious for them to be doing this. Nobody has any refuge from them. You can even pass laws and the Microsoft people will just completely ignore them and do whatever they want anyway. The City of New York basically has to ASK them not to harass the city- nicely and firmly- and hope to hell they listen, this time.

It could be worse. They could just as easily put stickers all over your private home- or your car- or put a sticker on your window to surprise you... on an upstairs window, using a pole to place it. Then it's your problem to get the sticker off while not falling out the window. It's only a streak of basic sanity that keeps them from using permanent adhesives, too. There is NO LIMIT on what these people will do, except what THEY think is appropriate. That's not a very equitable situation.

So, currently they're vandalizing, hiring people to rollerblade in prohibited areas, and hiring people to disturb the peace by screaming loudly.

Wonder what they'll be up to next year?

In other news....

[dacarr]

The city of Chicago took a pre-emptive strike and installed giant bug zappers in strategic locations throughout the central city and outlying areas where the El and Metra trains ran, in hopes of snaring rollerblading butterflies and butterfly decals before they were otherwise settled into the area. It is rumored that Los Angeles is doing this on their inter-city Red, Blue and Green rail lines as well, and Orange County Transportation Authority is installing mobile bug zappers on their busses for the next few weeks.

(disclaimer for legal reasons: this story is utter bull$#|+.)