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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."
Just a guess, but maybe they were talking about someone else?
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...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
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.
42
See if he knows the question.
God spoke to me
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
I never thought I'd hear of a man making millions of dollars and then deciding to become an encyclopedia salesman.