Slashdot Mirror
Jeopardy! Whiz Becomes Encarta Spokesman
Ant writes "BetaNews' story says Microsoft tapped Jeopardy! king Ken Jennings, who recently finished his 75-game run on the show, to become the spokesman for its Encarta product line. Jennings will embark on a nationwide media tour called 'Quiz the Whiz' that challenges news desks to stump the human encyclopedia with questions from Microsoft's Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005."
Jeopardy! Whiz Becomes Encarta Spokesman
By Nate Mook, BetaNews
December 6, 2004, 11:00 AM
Microsoft has tapped Jeopardy! king Ken Jennings, who recently finished his 75-game run on the show, to become the spokesman for its Encarta product line. Jennings will embark on a nationwide media tour called "Quiz the Whiz" that challenges news desks to stump the human encyclopedia with questions from Microsoft's Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005.
Jennings broke the game show record books this year and attracted a cult following by answering 2,700 Jeopardy! questions and raking in over $2.5 million in winnings. Before he takes off to Europe with his family next summer, Jennings hopes to pass on some of his passion for learning.
"It seems like a natural fit: Encarta has a long-standing commitment to furthering education, and I've had a lot of kids tell me that watching me on "Jeopardy!" has made reading and learning seem just a little cooler," Jennings told Microsoft in an interview.
Jennings also warned against relying solely on the Internet for researching information. "The Internet can be an incredible resource, but the scary thing is you never know what's out there or whether the answer you will find will be accurate. In fact, out of curiosity I searched for myself once and turned up all sorts of erroneous information," he said. "One seemingly reputable and authoritative page even had my name wrong!"
Ironically, Microsoft also mixed up his name in the interview, referring to the trivia whiz as "Jenkins."
Do a lot of people even use these anymore?
I figured by now, the internet would have overtaken these completely.
Right after his "loss" on the show. I still say it was a throw. Interesting marketing (and I bet it'll be successful) ploy for MS, I just wish Ken had thrown his popularity behind the open source community.
I felt a disturbance in the force, as if 10 thousand nerds cried out and then were silent.
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
...that when I see the phrase 'natural fit' in a MS press release, I think of some poor bastard yet again taking it in the ass from BG?
Just a guess, but maybe they were talking about someone else?
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
...but we spent so much time on your Wikipedia article!
(Seriously, look at that article... someone put waaay too much time into it.)
Alcohol and Calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive.
still a difference between trivia and knowledge
But I'd be willing to bet there is a large positive correlation between the two.
Yes, I'd mod you cynical. There is no evidence to indicate Ken Jennings was a moron with a great memory. IN the two shows I say (other people's houses), he was quick with comebacks to Alex. I also understand he was an engineer.
And as for marketing... get over it. Ken wants to make some more money. Good luck Ken!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
What causes Pip in poultry?
How old is Mae West?
Who was the last British heavyweight champion of the world?
How far is Winnipeg from Montreal?
When did Florence Nightingale die?
What is the height of the Empire State Building? What was the date of General Gordon's death?
and last but not least
What are the Thirty-Nine Steps? Come on! Answer up! What are the Thirty-Nine Steps?
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
I'd like to see a Texas cage match between Jennings and Trebek.... winner gets Jeopardy hosting duties.
Just thought of a better question:
"What is a General protection fault 0x4700AF2D in KERNEL32.DLL:MessageBoxExA+046 EAX 0x00000000 EIP 0x00000000 EDX 0x000010FA"
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Let's see... Painfully clean-cut, Mormon, works for Microsoft... Thinks "watching me on Jeopardy! has made reading and learning seem just a little cooler"..
Actually my theory is that Bill Gates got tired of being the nerdiest guy around Redmond...
42
See if he knows the question.
God spoke to me
I agree. But many of the comments seem to indicate no correlation between the two, or even a negative correlation.
I choose to be happy for Ken. I wonder why so many others choose to be envious.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Encarta isn't really 'fine' at all. It started out as a seriously discount paper encyclopedia, and it hasn't improved much at all. For example, take the biographical entry for Alexander Hamilton. It correctly puts a question mark next to the birt date, but then completely fails to discuss the controversy surrounding the birth date. Just recently, Wikipedia was dinged by a reviewer for exactly this sort of shallowness. Wikipedia fixed the problem the very same day the review came out.
The original paper encyclopedia Microsoft used as a source was Funk and Wagnall's New World Encyclopedia. It's not published any more. They used to be sold in supermarkets for $0.99 for the first volume, and $5 for the remaining volumes. I can't tell you how many people in the rinky dink town I grew up in had just the first volume of that encyclopedia, which they got for a buck at the grocery store. Lots of biology science papers were written on the ecology of the aardvark in those days.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
When chickens read Great Expectations.
How old is Mae West?
She's dead. But you're still welcome to come up and see her sometime.
Who was the last British heavyweight champion of the world?
Doesn't matter, the Irish still didn't recognize him.
How far is Winnipeg from Montreal?
It's too cold to tell now; ask again in summer.
When did Florence Nightingale die?
When her life ended.
What is the height of the Empire State Building? What was the date of General Gordon's death?
Is there a connection between the two?
What are the Thirty-Nine Steps? Come on! Answer up! What are the Thirty-Nine Steps?
Here ya go. Bring popcorn, it's great.
KJ would make an excellend slashdot interview...someone shoulud work on that...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
However trivia is knowing alot of little bits about different things. None of those bits are necessarily useful by themselves unless you're in a trivia competition.
;)
:)
Wow, I totally disagree with that. I have found that having some working knowledge in a wide range of topics is better (overall) than knowing everything about one small topic. Most of the people I know who focus with laser like intensity on one small field are complete failures at every other aspect of their life. And I work at a University, I know a lot of these people
Personally, I am first and formost a middleware/security/cryptography geek, but I also get into history (specifically wars), economics (my major in college), music, biology, and other various topics that strike my fancy.
I certainly am no expert on these topics, I probably do not pass the level you would consider trivia. I do, however, consider my life greatly enriched by learning all of these little factiods and trivia. At the very least I do not feel lost if conversation turns to something other than middleware/security/cryptography. Which (suprisingly) happens a lot, people just don't seem as excited about that stuff as I am in normal social situations
Finkployd
Did anyone else find it just a little bit weird that Jennings lost on the same night as Jeopardy aired the episode in which every category was somehow related to Seinfeld, not to mention the final category that was actually questions (answers?) about Seinfeld, read by actors fromSeinfeld...
The tie-in was a plug for the recently-released DVDs (one week before the airing of the episode, to be exact). Most Jeopardy episodes don't contain this kind of plug... in fact not a single one comes to mind in recent history. Doesn't anyone else find this the least bit weird?
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
I never thought I'd hear of a man making millions of dollars and then deciding to become an encyclopedia salesman.
Encarta has the best computer atlas I've ever seen, though. That's the most valuable part, and I've heard of people buying Encarta just for that atlas.