Top 10 Most Memorable Tech Super Bowl Ads

theodp writes "From 1977's lovable Xeroxing Monk to 2007's smug-and-rich SalesGenie pitch man, Valleywag has rounded up videos for its Top 10 most memorable tech-oriented Super Bowl commercials. The commercials are: Apple (1984), Monster (1999), CareerBuilder (2005), GoDaddy (2005), Xerox (1977), E*Trade (1999), Pets.com (2000), Computer.com (2000), SalesGenie.com (2007) and OurBeginning (2000). This year's ads are coming soon." I've always been a fan of the Outpost.com gerbil cannon spot.

Comments

digg?

[loconet]

/me checks the URL. Yes, it says slashdot.org . wtf is going on? I'm scared.

Re:digg?

[sqrt(2)]

Hey, I'm a nerd AND I like football. Go figure.

But anyway, this is scaring me. Why is slashdot trying to copy and compete with the likes of Digg? I come here because this place is DIFFERENT, the discourse is often intelligent and insightful. If I wanted mindless links to ads, Ron Paul you tube videos, and funny pictures I wouldn't be on a site that purports to cover "News for Nerds".

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a former jock and I don't give a damn about professional sports. What the hell do I care about some massive corporation pitting its employees against each other in arenas that were subsidized by tax payers? You might as well be rooting for coke versus pepsi. Incredibly retarded, but I guess sports suits the goal of placating and soothing the masses so they don't have time or energy to care about important things that are affecting them.

Re:digg?

[astrosmash]

Well, using the dark "Slashdot" green background for the entire story description is a little much.

But I really like the updated layout. They're no longer wasting valuable real estate on the pointless left-hand column.

Re:digg?

[akita]

But they changed the font size. This one is tiny.
And the green header, WTF?
At least Digg is readable.

Re:digg?

[Jezz]

Err, is this actually about the Football? Nope! It's actually about the tech ads aired in the biggest slot available (the superbowl).

Now is it interesting? Probably not. But isn't Football a nerd sport? (One there are lots of stats? Baseball might be the ultimate nerd sport, but American Football has to come pretty close)

Of course if you count Chess as a sport... (I do, but hell I'm a nerd - but you knew that already)

Re:digg?

[PrvtBurrito]

You'll get over it.

Re:digg?

[scottv67]

I come here because this place is DIFFERENT, the discourse is often intelligent and insightful.

You must be new here. You can count on Slashdot discussions to contain gems of wisdom like:

1. That story about the guy who ate other people's shit
2. The story about the old farmhand who played with the "pecker" of the young farmhand
3. The plague of Minicity links
4. Every story is tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" by third-graders who visit /. while their teacher isn't looking
5. The GNAA posts
6. The angry atheist comments (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/atheist-atheism.php)

Sometimes it's really hard to find the wheat amongst the chaff.

Re:digg?

[rossz]

I'd moderate you up, but I don't have any points at the moment.

The millionaires who demand subsidies to build stadiums or they'll move their team elsewhere insisted that their sporting events helped the local economy by bringing in tax revenues. The first baseball strike proved what a lie that was. What actually happened was people did other things in their cities. They went to dinner and a movie or the theater, etc. They spent roughly the same amount of money except they spread it across multiple businesses instead of only at the stadium. This was actually BETTER for the local economy. More businesses benefited and the tax revenues were often bigger because the professional sports team often received a tax break to stay in town.

Screw professional sports. The next time one demands the taxpayer's cough up money or they'll walk, show them the door.

Re:digg?

[sqrt(2)]

Of course there are trolls. You're going to deal with people like that everywhere you go, on and offline (They're just more prevalent and egregious when they have anonymity). I've read genuinely interesting and informative posts too, and they usually out number the people that are just making noise.

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes it's really hard to find the wheat amongst the chaff. Sure. You're looking for wheat in a chaff field.

Re:digg?

[goatpunch]

Yes, getting rid of the junk on the left hand side for every story is great.

Re:digg?

[pippadaisy]

I take it that no one actually reads anything about Slashdot. See the idle up there in the URL? They added stuff that isn't tech. For those who do have other interests.

I'd also like to ask where the heck is the EDS herding cats ad? That one was awesome. And I have no recollection of salesgenie's from last year. This year's was forgettable already.

Re:digg?

[dysfunct]

They're no longer wasting valuable real estate

It's pretty nice - at least until you realize that long horizontal lines of text are more strenuous to read. Shorter lines with more rows are a lot easier on the eyes.

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

ctrl-+ changes font size. Seems to work fine for me. What's your problem chuckles?

Re:digg?

[ibentmywookie]

This article makes a lot of sense really. The game is so damn boring, that the ads are really the highlight.

No, I'm not from the US :-)

Re:digg?

[AmaDaden]

Why is slashdot trying to copy and compete with the likes of Digg?

Why shouldn't it? The core of Slashdot is and always will be the same. Adding more on the edges (the Idle section) is unlikely to effect that. As for the layout if the site that is known to be 'news for nerds' fell behind tech wise it would be a laughing stock. They need to try new things every so often. If no one likes it they will go back to the old design.

Side note: Scrolling in this new comment system does suck. Go in to Prefs and turn off "Enable Dynamic Discussions" for a speed boost.

Re:digg?

[britneys 9th husband]

Once upon a time there was an old farmhand who liked to play with a young farmhand's pecker while eating shit. But one day, he decided to go to the city to inquire about the three conditions for joining the GNAA. Along the way, he burned down 4 churches, a mosque, and a scientology center for promoting torture, terrorism, and death.

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:digg?

[morari]

Damn it, I just used the last of my mod points earlier today! You sir, would have received a +Insightful for sure.

Re:digg?

[complete loony]

Also note the firehose-y behaviour of http://idle.slashdot.org/ but with a similar layout.

Re:digg?

[WGR]

Actually I am installing a new version of TeX WHILE watching the SuperBowl . There are so many commercials it gives lots of time to use the keyboards.

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Sometimes it's really hard to find the wheat amongst the chaff.

I'm gluten intolerant you insensitive clod!!!

Re:digg?

[SL Baur]

Sometimes it's really hard to find the wheat amongst the chaff. Yeah, but so what? That's always been true anywhere, well except for moderated newsgroups on Usenet.

Moderation sucks and slashdot moderations suck harder. Read at -1, ignore the moderation and skim past the offensive posts.

There's a lot of entertaining material here, you just have to get past the moderation to see most of it. I'm not the only low 5-digit or less Slashdot ID who still reads and posts here. Any web site that keeps readers for over a decade is doing something right.

Re:digg?

[symbolic]

I have to say that I agree. Somehow "professional" sports loses its shine when you're rooting for which corporation gets the biggest payoff.

Re:digg?

[bendodge]

Has anyone found out how to hide this "Idle" section? It doesn't seem to be with all the other categories in Preferences.

Re:digg?

[ResidntGeek]

Football a "nerd sport"? You have no clue what a nerd is, do you?

Re:digg?

[starwed]

Still completely superior to digg.

Re:digg?

[Fred_A]

It's pretty nice - at least until you realize that long horizontal lines of text are more strenuous to read. Shorter lines with more rows are a lot easier on the eyes. Hint : You don't *have* to maximize your window.

My Firefox windows are spawned with a geometry of 850x1100 which makes for nicely legible text on most sites (and often hides some of the right hand ad bar on the wide ones).

Re:digg?

[Slime-dogg]

With that sig, you must really be new here.

Re:digg?

[ArsenneLupin]

You forgot:

• In Soviet Russia...
• Goatse links right in the story submission
• I, for one, welcome our new football-watching couch potato overlords
• ...

Re:digg?

[sqrt(2)]

Check my UID. I'm not THAT new.

Not all geeks are libertarians. In fact I'd say most are not. The ones that are just happen to be incredibly vocal.

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

And (being a foreigner) I didn't see the actual sports bit in the program. As far as I could see it was a load of used car salesmen jabbering on in annoying voices for a few hours, with the occasional view of a pitch where big blokes ran around for five, ten seconds tops, and then cut back to the whinefest... god it made cricket look fast paced by comparison...

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Biggest problem: it ignores the "simple mode" and "lightweight html" mode checkboxes in user prefs.

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fag.

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you forgot the most common of all Slashdot gems.

"You must be new here" comments are why we come back.

Re:digg?

[ryanov]

I suppose by vocal, you mean retarded.

Re:digg?

[PriceIke]

Agree. The "salesgenie.com" ad is absolutely stupid. EDS' "herding cats" ad is one of the greatest of all time, not to mention Mean Joe Green (Coke). Whoever put this list together doesn't know beans about advertising.

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is slashdot trying to copy and compete with the likes of Digg?

may be just business

Re:digg?

[mortonda]

Check my UID. I'm not THAT new. Yes, you are.

Re:digg?

[Mike Buddha]

Check my UID. I'm not THAT new. Yes, you are. Ooh, snap! And here I am being all snotty to the 6-digiters! I'll STFU now.

Re:digg?

[dysfunct]

That is correct, although IMHO that defeats the purpose of having multiple tabs. I mostly read Slashdot while working on unrelated things and having to resize the window depending on the layout of the website in each tab is too bothersome.

Re:digg?

[Fred_A]

Here, even on the laptop, I don't maximize the browser window, it's also at around 8 or 900 pixels and that's fine for pretty much all sites. On the desktop, with a 1920 pixel wide display, maximizing would be absurd of course.

I reckon that it's a matter of taste too though.

Re:digg?

[seandiggity]

If I could attach screenshots, I'd show you plenty of other wasted real estate in this design. I mean, I assume they'll polish this up but right now all the content is clumped together and surrounded by a large amount of padding. Not to mention that whole top frame thingy they have going.

This new look...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is just horrible: Don't go the same way as Digg, or you'll also start attracting the same crowd. I don't need pictures of the movie: If I'm interested enough, I'll click the freaking link...

Re:This new look...

[jmv]

If I'm interested enough, I'll click the freaking link...

I'm sorry, this is against the Slashdot terms of conduct.

Re:This new look...

[AstrumPreliator]

I'm going to have to guess that this move is to attract a larger user base and get some more ad revenue. Having a site devoted to geeky tech articles limits your user base considerably. Internet/Tech pop-culture is an extremely easy way to widen your target audience. Sites like Digg have tapped into this audience and Slashdot apparently wants a piece of the pie.

On the plus side it's in its own section with a design so gaudy I can easily avoid it. That's the only plus though. The bad part is it will attract Digg-like users. Now as I stated in this comment I come to Slashdot to read what others have to say about an article. The article itself isn't the most important part, it just gives a topic of discussion. I've seen the quality of comments slipping for a while now. People don't so much debate things any more as they bicker over them. Comments which are flat out wrong will be modded informative/insightful implying that not only do the users have no desire to do a little research before they shoot off their two cents, but moderators aren't even willing to do a little research to make sure a comment deserves an insightful/informative modifier.

Slashdot now has an idle section for internet/tech pop-culture, it has the firehouse, and it has a new comment system even though the old one was picture perfect (I still use it). There's only so many "Web 2.0" features you can add before this becomes another Digg.

Now it's not like I'm going to e-mail CmdrTaco and complain, but I may look for an alternative to Slashdot. This is just my opinion though.

Re:This new look...

[Scaba]

Don't go the same way as Digg, or you'll also start attracting the same crowd

What, people who aren't afraid of change?

Re:This new look...

[rampant mac]

"I don't need pictures of the movie: If I'm interested enough, I'll click the freaking link..."

No one, and I mean no one, reads the f*cking articles here. Click the picture. n00b.

Re:This new look...

[lucas teh geek]

On the plus side it's in its own section with a design so gaudy I can easily avoid it.

really? have you tried? i looked and it's not in the list of sections you can block in the homepage customization options. I'm sure it'll be fixed eventually, but right now you cant easily avoid it's gaudy design

Re:This new look...

[Slime-dogg]

I remember when Digg started up, and there was a plethora of comments that linked to Digg and referred to it.

If there's worry about the "Digg crowd," it's important to remember that much of the "Digg crowd" really is just old /. people. I don't go to Digg, personally, but I can't imagine both sites having mutually exclusive memberships.

Re:This new look...

[ArsenneLupin]

If I'm interested enough, I'll click the freaking link...

I'm sorry, this is against the Slashdot terms of conduct.

Indeed. On Slashdot, doing that would often send you to the moon...

help!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is showing images on the front page, even though i've set it to simple. Also the page view for comments is all messed up even though comments are set to the old simple mode.

Arrrghhh.

You would think...

[computerman413]

That Slashdot would bother to announce a major change to its layout. I don't like it any more than I like the new discussion system.

Re:You would think...

[bersl2]

I think this is just for this subdomain, which I don't remember being announced anyway.

Re:You would think...

[Punto]

yeah, they should have told us that they were going to start covering sports

Re:You would think...

[gEvil (beta)]

idle = diggdot?

Re:You would think...

[Jugalator]

I like most of it! I like how it separates the text from the comments in a distinct way. I also like how the new comment system works faster for me than the old one, and the extra features it brings.

I don't like the now very small text boxes to input text in though, among a few things. :-S

This message was brought to you to by the Resistance From Geeks Reluctant To Change.

Re:You would think...

[Trogre]

It wouldn't be so bad if you could change it like the other sections. Like the IT section. Just change it.shashdot.org.. to shit.slashdot.org/... and the ugly white/brown goes away. Not so here. Maybe they've 'fixed' the other sections too now.

Re:You would think...

[VultureMN]

If only they had some way to post articles about the changes...

Re:You would think...

[_Sprocket_]

idle = diggdot? I used to love that game! Wait...

Re:You would think...

[Mike89]

We are talking about the 'I am willing to help test Slashdot's New Discussion System.', right? It's horrible! I like it the way it is.. I can open a dozen stories, and they DON'T lag my browser out!? What on earth!? Why would anyone want this!

Also the new comment system doesn't work on my Wii. The scrolling bit just takes up the whole screen. :(.

Re:You would think...

[adolf]

If such an article were ever posted, I'd first complain that having boxes drawn around comments is silly, that it detracts from the content, and that it is without positive merit.

I'd then complain that the big Slashdot-green box within which is contained the article text is annoying. It doesn't flow for shit, and is furthermore hideous.

And I'd also complain that the box surrounding the text on the submission page is too small. I want it bigger. And it was bigger prior to this change. Last time this portion of Slashdot was fucked with, years and years ago, it was only to add an option to make this size user-selectable. I, a user, had selected a bigger box.

Now, that setting seems to have been reset to 80 columns. And, sure, I can just go ahead and change it back, but WTF?

How many other preferences were needlessly trashed?

Re:You would think...

[jelle]

When I turn on the new discussion system, I suddenly see a lot of '-1 troll' annoying posts. With the same settings and the 'old' system, it's nicely filtered as I want...

Re:You would think...

[Just Some Guy]

I don't like it any more than I like the new discussion system.

I actually like it a lot more. For once, all the comments aren't indented a couple of inches just because there's a navigation bar next to the story up at the very top.

Salesgenie.com ad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so memorable...

errr.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I preferred the ponies.

Re:errr.....

[cptnapalm]

OMG P0ni3Z!

This amuses me. Perhaps I need to go to a psychiatrist.

Idle

[icegreentea]

Apparently Slashdot now has a section specifically for nonsensible and pointless articles. And they even made it look like digg!

Re:Idle

[Planky]

It's just an idle dig at Digg...

Re:Idle

[Seumas]

Apparently Slashdot now has a section specifically for nonsensible and pointless articles. And they even made it look like digg! Nonsensible?!

It looks like Slashdot is trying to pull for the Digg audience. Instead of having fewer articles that have a little more thought (though still not much) put into their selection, they want to grab the addicted eyeballs that will stay around reading, clicking, voting, watching as long as there is still content to read, click, vote on and watch. Even if it's crap.

I can't say if I think this is good or bad. I don't care to spend my time at Digg and would not mind having a little more besides the general articles on Slashdot for my consumption... but it all depends on how it is executed. I'll give it some time before flying my hate flag.

Re:Idle

[saibot834]

Why would they need a section for that? I thought wasting away geeks' time was the whole point of Slashdot.

Re:Idle

[Idiomatik]

Not only that, its enforced pointlessness.
http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome
Its the only section that you can't shutoff from showing up on the main page. Obviously just forgotten but still ironic they'd miss the only section a significant number of members will shut off.

I Don't Remember these ads

[Anonymous Coward]

And I've watched the Super-Bowl every year, it's like the columnist just included the 10 he remembered and labeled them "The Most memorable Ads" Besides Officemax's Rubberband Man is the most memorable superbowl ad.

Re:I Don't Remember these ads

[Dadoo]

Besides Officemax's Rubberband Man is the most memorable superbowl ad.

While I'll agree Rubber Band Man should be on that list, and a few that are on the list shouldn't be (I mean, come on, what's funny or interesting about the SalesGenie.com or GoDaddy.com commercials?), there's no question the 1984 Macintosh ad is the best, so far, and will probably remain the best for a while. Seriously - the thing was directed by Ridley Scott. Of course, if you actually watched it when it originally aired, it was a lot more powerful.

Re:I Don't Remember these ads

[Poromenos1]

Gah, the GoDaddy one was so bad it borders on offensive... Why oh why...

oh my god

[hav0x]

the goggles! they do nothing!

Re:oh my god

[owlnation]

In Soviet Slashdot, page lays out you.

Re:oh my god

[MarkRose]

Here, you can borrow these!

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously I hate this new look.. it looks pathetic.. i was like WTF?.. is it my slashdot? .what happened to my precious :( me iz sad :(

Poor article got the shaft

[CharAznable]

I predict there will be close to zero posts about the article itself.

Re:Poor article got the shaft

[Anonymous Coward]

Gah! It's even fucked up the comment posting page!

Anyway, *cough* as I was going to say...

Maybe that's the point. Football? On /.? WTF?

Re:Poor article got the shaft

[TheRaven64]

Just to prove you wrong:

The 1984 Apple advert was clearly a classic and the 1977 Xerox one (while seriously dated) was pretty entertaining. The rest, it seems, were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Were there really no good superbowl commercials in the last 30 years? The pets.com one looks like the kind of thing that made me give up having a television in my house.

Back off topic, I quite like the new layout but the comment submission page sucks beyond belief. Was the CareerBuilder.com advert filmed in the Slashdot office?

Re:Poor article got the shaft

[dwater]

IMO, almost all of them are crap.

The only one worth my time is the E*Trade one, which appealed to the cynic in me :)

BTW, where is The Dot?

[D4C5CE]

Probably this Sun did not rise in the Superbowl break, but they did make a movie trailer of "Just when your competition thought it was safe to do business" back in the day.

And then there were IBM's OS/2-toting nuns ("my mobile") & gears supplier (to Japanese clients)... Sightings, anyone?

Re:BTW, where is The Dot?

[Trogre]

Yeah. I live in NZ and those Nuns and the Surfers were the only OS/2 commercials we got here. Pity they're not on Youtube. All the OS/2 ads on there seem to be dry business folks drooling at a screen we can't see.

wait a second...

[hjf]

I thought I read "tech-oriented"? Then why the hell is Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, SalesGenie.com and *gasp* OurBeginnings.com in that list? Everything with ".com" in the name is "tech-oriented" now? Sheesh.

Re:wait a second...

[grommit]

No shit. Then there's the fact that it's supposed to be the "most memorable" ads. Did the editors even *look* at that Salesgenie ad? One of the most boring and tired ads I've seen.

Re:wait a second...

[Anonymous Coward]

*concurs* Though I really liked this year's CareerBuilder.com ad... quite funny.

Re:wait a second...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry... this is not /. this is just some phishing website... See this layout is not /. layout... I just had too much beer trying to not be a geek and enjoy Superbowl... Everything is going to get back to normal tomorrow... Just calm down and use Google cache to see old /. pages, until this new layout goes away...

Still waiting...

[MousePotato]

Back in the early 90's they had an IBM ad for a slick phone/wearable computer/heads-up display. Some guy was trading pork belly's in a park on the other side of the world while feeding pidgeons. They showed it again on the last episode of Star Trek TNG. Probably a few times after that. The product never made it to market and even if they launched it today would probably be the iphone killer that every geek dreams of.

My vote for the biggest vaporware product ad evah.

Re:Still waiting...

[hitmark]

quick setup:
http://www.myvu.com/ for display.
some random umpc for computing.
a mobile phone doing hsdpa or evdo for connectivity.

problem is input and battery life...

godaddy

[rucs_hack]

Wasn't GoDaddy the company that paid lots for the superbowl advert, then died?

I ask purely because I know there was one famous dot com bust faliure known for a great superbowl advert that failed soon after, and I can't recall the name.

There, and I didn't mention the hideous new layout once....

Re:godaddy

[Seumas]

The godaddy ads are terrible. The whole idea is "look -- hot chick!" but then they stick a chick who is only mildly attractive but has enormous tits in the ad. Yes, I'm such a stupid red blooded male that the only thing I care about is breast size. Whatever, GoDaddy... lame. At least be unique and pick hot geek girls to sling your ads during the superbowl.

Re:godaddy

[Grimoire]

That would be pets.com. Now the sock hawks car loans.

Re:godaddy

[slashdotmsiriv]

I believe that was pets.com. Godaddy is still alive and kicking.

It seems that computers.com did not fare good as well.

Re:godaddy

[afidel]

Their website isn't alive and well though! Their Danika ad apparently slashdotted their site into oblivion. Glad I'm not trying to do any domain operations with them tonight, I'd be pissed that they fucked up their site with a stupid ad stunt that they should have been prepared for.

Grumpy old men...

[adam]

Damn kids, get off my lawn!

Jeeeeez people, calm down. As of composing this, about 75% of the comments are complaining of digg similarities, the new discussion system, blah blah. Calm down, people.. it's still slashdot. As best I can tell, they've just debuted a new section (idle.slashdot). You can still post your retarded memes (In soviet Russia our new CSS web 2.0 overlords welcome I, for one), and otherwise go about your typical slashdot business.

Back to the actual article.. I'd never heard of computer.com.. I guess it would help if I watched the superbowl.. but, yea, I don't. After viewing all the ads in TFA, some are decent (and I've seen re-run later), and some aren't terribly memorable (the salesgenie ad looks like something a 12 year old kid could storyboard in about an hour). Most of the dotcom ads are from companies I'm aware of (monster, pets.com, etc), although I never heard of computer.com or ourbeginning.com.

I tried to do some research on computer.com to see what its story was (currently a doorway page for a linkfarm).. and as best I can tell, it burned out right away (Seattle PI story from 2yrs later). (They raised $6M+ in venture funding, and blew $3M on the superbowl ads). There's even a 3yr old /. story that has computer.com in the comments, but TFA doesn't seem to mention computer.com directly (and the linked "video dot-bombs" from TFA doesn't seem to work for me). I'm curious if anyone here knows the full story?

Re:Grumpy old men...

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Wikipedia seems to think computer.com is now TigerDirect. You might have heard of them.

Re:Grumpy old men...

[Anonymous Coward]

>the salesgenie ad looks like something a 12 year old kid could >storyboard in about an hour)

Whats amusing is that Vin Gupta the CEO of InfoUSA is the one who came up with 2007's ad and the 3 2008 ads.

Outpost.com gerbil cannon spot

[circletimessquare]

i liked it mainly because i couldn't imagine an ad that would piss off PETA more

Wait, wait, wait... SPORTS?!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean this thing on TV isn't a Madden game? I wondered when they started adding commercials to the load screens.

Re:Wait, wait, wait... SPORTS?!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is definitely not Madden

Budwiser should fire their add agency

[tkrotchko]

The fire breathing beer commercial was so dumb that the CEO should probably fire their agency and marketing department.

And they paid first commercial money for that. Ouch.

Re:Budwiser should fire their add agency

[idlemind]

Plus it was a total rip-off of a Wendy's commercial involving spicy sandwhiches.

10 Best Ads Already Done

[sjvn]

eWEEK already did it with a different list of ads earlier this week.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Super-Tech-Ads/

Steven

Re:10 Best Ads Already Done

[wastedbrains]

Another tech only list can be found here, just add the filter Tech, to see only the tech commercials
http://seekler.com/lists/Best+Super+Bowl+Commercials+of+All+Time/
This list lets you filter by arbitrary tags so if you want just funny, sports, or whatever you can generate lists with only those items, ranked by users.

Really? The go daddy ad?

[SynapseLapse]

A woman with large breasts is all it takes to be memorable? Didn't realize /. had been purchased by fark.com.

Re:Really? The go daddy ad?

[Faylone]

No, but it sure helps.

Re:Really? The go daddy ad?

[TimHunter]

A woman with large breasts is all it takes to be memorable?

You're gay, aren't you?

Re:Really? The go daddy ad?

[Dadoo]

You're gay, aren't you?

Are you sure you belong on this site? Remember: Slashdot is "News for nerds, stuff that matters". If you were actually a nerd, you'd have access to all the porn you could ever want. Why would you want to see breasts that are covered up?

Re:Really? The go daddy ad?

[florescent_beige]

A woman with large breasts is all it takes to be memorable? Um...you...I mean...ok but...well...yes?

Re:Really? The go daddy ad?

[RealGrouchy]

My guess is it's just being rerouted through Digg and Fark, and it'll all be over soon.

That is, I sure hope it does. One more underwater cable gets cut, and /. might get routed through Myspace!

- RG>

Re:Really? The go daddy ad?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, she had a nice ass too.

Re:Really? The go daddy ad?

[MyLongNickName]

A woman with large breasts is all it takes to be memorable? Didn't realize /. had been purchased by fark.com.

I'd hit it.

Re:Really? The go daddy ad?

[Faylone]

Because they're breasts?

Why.....

[Anonymous Coward]

...are some of these considered "tech" commercials? because the company has a website, or perhaps does business via a website? Were mail order firms in the 1980's considered "tech"? They probably had cutting edge phone technology at the time.

I can't post now...

[borgalicious]

I'm watching some ball game on television.

My personal favorite

[wkitchen]

The EDS cat herding commercial: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

Re:My personal favorite

[dwater]

just silly, IMO

The only one I've seen so far that's worth mentioning is the E*Trade one from TFA.

I'm not from the US and so don't see the commercials, but even I've heard they're supposed to be good...nothing that memorable yet.

IMO, the Apple vs PC ones are way better...

Re:My personal favorite

[jayayeem]

The Cat Herding commercial was funny if you were previously familiar with the cat herding metaphor.

Re:My personal favorite

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. That ad is better than most of the ones in this list.

Arrrgh... top 10 lists

[owlnation]

layout change... disconcerted...confused... make. it. stop. ...

ok... trying to focus...

Top 10 lists. Is it just me? Or does everyone when they see any kind of "top 10" list they immediately think:

1. Lazy worthless journalists.
2. Product placement / viral marketing / ad by stealth

I need to work 10 list of things I'd like to do to journalists. But it'll have to wait until after I have recovered from the brain damage that is this new layout...

Re:Arrrgh... top 10 lists

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Lazy worthless journalists.
2. Product placement / viral marketing / ad by stealth

Where's 3 through 10?

Breaks page down and page up

[LinEagle]

Yes but it breaks page down and page up, because the left hand bar is now hovering at the top of the screen... so some text gets hidden when moving between pages because my browser (Firefox 2.0.0.11) does not realize the bar is there at the top.

apple ad, prophecy?

[hitmark]

the more i read about locked iphones, itunes and whatsnot it strikes me as kinda ironic that apple ran a ad about 1984...

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[Joe U]

Why does everyone seem to think that Apple is represented by the woman with the hammer in that commercial?

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[rueger]

Agreed. Trouble is Apple fans confuse snotty and arrogant with "iconic".

I really wonder who Apple's ads are aimed at (like the endlessly irritating Mac vs PC ads). Surely they aren't intended to convince PC users to switch - insulting someone usually isn't an effective way to do that - so the only point of them must be to keep the Apple brethren convinced of their innate superiority.

(this comment composed on a G4 Powerbook, freshly rebooted after the latest kernel panic)

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[that this is not und]

The historical context for the Apple '1984' ad was that in that era, most computing was locked up in Mainframe operations. There was a crew with labcoats on who where the only people allowed to touch actual computer hardware. If you needed a printout, you filled out a form and put it in the basket next to the half-door that separated 'users' from the IT staff.

Microsoft and Apple were both 'liberating' from that computer culture, with the notion of everybody having their own computer on their desk.

The 'IBM' being decried at that time was not the 'IBM' that Apple marketed against for the decade following 1984.

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[CastrTroy]

However, most PC users are quite annoyed with their computer experience. Most of the recent Mac commercials I've seen poke fun at all the problems that PCs usually have, like viruses, ugly computer design, and the fact that they come installed with tons of adware. Mac commercials say, here's a list of all the problems we know you have, and we know you hate. And if you want something more out of your computer, then buy a Mac. I'm typing this on a Windows machine myself, which I don't really have a problem using. However, I think that Windows does a terrible job for the general populous.

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[Crizp]

*whoosh* *thud* ouch!

check your sarcasm / irony detectors, cadet!

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[Joe U]

However, I think that Windows does a terrible job for the general populous I think the problem is that no OS can fit the general populous without having problems. Windows is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none platform. That's why there are so many editions of Windows, Microsoft can't just release 'Windows' and have everyone happy. Home users don't care about running a domain controller and most business users are not too keen on media center.

You'll always have other platforms out there, simply because they can fill in the niches that Microsoft can't dedicate enough time for.

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[KH2002]

The historical context for the Apple '1984' ad was that in that era, most computing was locked up in Mainframe operations. There was a crew with labcoats on who where the only people allowed to touch actual computer hardware. If you needed a printout, you filled out a form and put it in the basket next to the half-door that separated 'users' from the IT staff. False. By 1984, the personal computing revolution was in full swing. Spreadsheets & word processing were big business.

The 'IBM' being decried at that time was not the 'IBM' that Apple marketed against for the decade following 1984. Also false. IBM had been selling PCs for years by the time of the 1984 commercial, and very successfully, too.

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[symbolic]

Interesting comment - even more when you consider that Apple products (especially since the Macintosh) have always been somewhat "locked." They had the Mac Toolbox ROM which contained all the GUI stuff, and the whole thing was very closed and proprietary compared to PC hardware. The early macs even required a special wrench to open the box.

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[that this is not und]

Also false. IBM had been selling PCs for years by the time of the 1984 commercial, and very successfully, too.

By 1984, IBM was in serious recovery mode trying to come up with something to drag their open architecture 'PC' product line back toward their way of doing business. The IBM PC was never envisioned by the IBM of that era as a free stand-alone product. It was bracketed as part of their 'Entry Systems' division, intended as a smart terminal connected to IBM Mainframes. But the design had gotten free of them, and the cloners were on the rampage, rolling out tons and tons of cheap hardware that anybody could buy and use as a stand-alone machine.

IBM's eventual response was the PS/2 architecture, with the closed Microchannel Architecture card bus. OS/2 was also part of that scheme, a more closed and restricted software architecture with a significantly higher 'barrier to entry' than the plain old program loader by then being called MS-DOS (not PC-DOS like IBM had original arranged it.) The 'IBM Clone' design was a monster that IBM has never really recovered from releasing out into the world.

The Apple '1984' commercial was attacking what IBM had been and was striving to return to being. Microsoft and the cloners, in contrast, were competing in parallel with Apple to be what the market wanted.

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[KH2002]

The Apple '1984' commercial was attacking what IBM had been and was striving to return to being. Not true. Apple was attacking not just the narrow, proprietary lock-in aspect, but the the idea that the unimaginative PC standard(s) would take over the industry. It was about a radical course change. Look to Apple's subsequent (and disastrous) "Lemmings" commercial for further indications.

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[Single GNU Theory]

Home users don't care about running a domain controller and most business users are not too keen on media center.


Yeah, because if I didn't want Windows Movie Maker, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express, and Windows Media Player installed on the desktop PCs at work, I should have opted for Windows XP Professional.

Oh, wait... I did.

You can "uninstall" OE and WMP, but all that does is remove the shortcuts.

And I really can't tell you how much my TIFF-printing users (FAX images are a way of life at work) enjoyed moving from 1-click process in Windows 2000 to the 7-click process in the unremovable Photo Printing Wizard. I had to add more software to our standard distribution to deal with the crap Microsoft added themselves!

Re:apple ad, prophecy?

[that this is not und]

You've bought into the Apple folklore.

Also Updated Firehose - http://idle.slashdot.org/

[Myriad]

Interesting... if you remove the story from the link, going straight to http://idle.slashdot.org/ you still get the Superbowl ad story, but under it you'll see an Idle Firehose in a new interface. The page title becomes Firehose as well.

Changes are afoot!

WTF?

[rnws]

I do hope this is just a section (idle.slashdot) change and not intended to be a site-wide change. Looks not good and way too many active widgets in the page.

what

[takeya]

I already come here to idly pass my time away with tech news, not shitty popularly selected pop-news articles.

Re:what

[rnws]

Damn right. Time for an angry mob I say, if I could just find a pitchfork...

Re:what

[Ilgaz]

I already come here to idly pass my time away with tech news, not shitty popularly selected pop-news articles. You will "idly" filter Slashdot idle section from your front page I think. Like the OSTG toolbar thing.

ps: This is just a guess

Join!

[Daimanta]

And Slashdot this comment!

I don't know or care about football games, but..

[Fantastic Lad]

I enjoyed a couple of IBM's ads promoting Linux.

This odd little number which reminds me of THX1138 and 2001

And. . .

Sisko doing Morpheus

These tap into the love of geeks for sci-fi and ideals about freedom in a manner which must have been fun for the guys making these ads. --Which goes to show that having a huge ad budget means you can do some cool stuff from time to time.

-FL

There are links ...?

[pbhj]

There are links ...?

Why didn't anyone say?

Re:I don't know or care about football games, but.

[dwater]

They're ok, I guess. Lost on the masses, I guess.

I still prefer the E*Trade one from TFA.

Super Bowl?!!

[CyberLife]

What's the Super Bowl? Is that anything like Puppy Bowl? :P

Re:Super Bowl?!!

[JasterBobaMereel]

Apparently it's something like a sport played in America?

Allegedly it's quite popular but only in the USA?

I could have watched it this morning (at 4AM!) but couldn't be bothered since I hadn't heard of either of the teams?

Apparently big companies pay large amounts of money to advertise to Americans in the numerous breaks in play

The rest of the world however is not the target and does not care....

Next topic: most memorable adverts in the FA Cup Final ...

NOT tigerdirect

[Anonymous Coward]

well, wikipedia search for "computer.com" does indeed redirect to tigerdirect's wikipedia page.

Logic would dictate, however, that is TD really owned this domain, it wouldn't be a linkfarm, but would re-direct to their site. Perhaps at some point they did.. but I don't believe they now do. So I'll ask again if anyone knows the complete story (like if they ever made any money at all, how long they stayed in business, etc).

WHOIS:

Registrant:
Parked.com, LLC
5505 W. Gray St
Tampa, FL 33609
US
813-382-2800

Domain Name: COMPUTER.COM

Administrative Contact:
Domains, Parked admin@parked.com
5505 W. Gray St
Tampa, FL 33609
US
813-382-2800

Technical Contact:
Domains, Parked admin@parked.com
5505 W. Gray St
Tampa, FL 33609
US
813-382-2800

Record last updated 12-02-2007 10:02:50
Record expires on 12-02-2017
Record created on 08-11-1994

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.PARKED.COM 69.46.233.250
NS2.PARKED.COM 69.46.234.250

Re:NOT tigerdirect

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Interesting. Check out http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://computer.com

This seems to be a pattern: big tech company sees domain spammers own computer.com, so they buy it to link to their website (TigerDirect for most of 2007, TechDepot a while before that, etc.). They run it for a year, but they get nowhere near enough revenue from the link to justify renewing it, and domain spammers get it again, repeating the process.

Re:NOT tigerdirect

[ModernGeek]

It looks like it pointed to http://computers4sure.com/ at one point or another, and their phone number is 1 800 COMPUTER, so I am assuming the just lost the domain, or rebranded from computer.com to computers4sure.com

Mod Parent Up

[Iftekhar25]

That's really an excellent description of recent slashdot trends.

Well, you just saw...

[Anonymous Coward]

(Those of you who were watching) a superbowl game get thrown. Good job, guys. Excellent job selling out your perfect season for those chumps in Vegas that didn't want to pay up on those hundreds of millions of dollars in bets out there. They cashed in and so did you, cause you went all in for the underdogs. We aren't stupid, you know.

I can't filter idle?

[Night Goat]

So when is Slashdot going to let me start filtering out all idle.slashdot.org articles? This is not good, Digg is not something to emulate.

Re:I don't know or care about football games, but.

[RiotingPacifist]

I love the linux series from IBM not sure if these were real superbowl adds tho, as i don't care much for American rugby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWy7hsiQsNA

thoughts on commericials

[spgass]

I don't understand why everyone makes such a big deal of the Super Bowl commercials. Just because they're expensive time slots to buy doesn't mean they're going to be worth watching. Tonight I caught the soft drink one with Bill Frist and James Carville and it was amusing, but basically the commercials just provide a convenient time to visit the commode.

Typical Faux-pas digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Incredibly retarded, but I guess sports suits the goal of placating and soothing the masses so they don't have time or energy to care about important things that are affecting them."

Former jock huh? Well I don't know why you think the "but the masses" BS will fly, but one if you think the masses are placated? Then you haven't been paying attention to what's been happening this year? Second stadiums are usually used for more than just the home teams games. We held basketbal, hockey and other events at our stadium when the home team wasn't playing. And last the total city population was much greator than the population that used the stadium (big hint sunshine your "masses" isn't as influentual as you think).

The first Victoria's Secret SuperBowl ad

[brianc]

...when they asked everyone watching the game to
visit the website.

I was doing SysAdmin/Webmaster work at the time
and immediately told my wife- "Geeze, I wouldn't
want to trade places with the guys supporting that!"

Sure enough- Worst. Slashdotting. Ever!

Everyone's so focused on the 'new look'

[jadin]

Everyone's ignoring the actual story, which was pretty sad. No commentary on "why" they were memorable, most of which weren't. I'd say most were mediocre at best. Seems like this "story" if you want to call it that was made just to drive traffic. Why was this front paged?

It's just the Idle section

[Xenographic]

They've had tons of idle stories, but you can only see them by modifying your account to show the idle section or by looking in the firehose. I think this is just the first one to show up on the main page.

And yeah, like the other guy said, this theme is ONLY for the idle section. You can probably just change the idle.slashdot.org to www.slashdot.org to get rid of it, actually. I know I had to make a script to do that so games.slashdot.org doesn't get blocked at work (I think I changed games -> it).

Idle has been around for weeks now. Most of the stories aren't that great, and more than a few have been NSFW.

that time linux got a superbowl commercial

[plurgid]

Damn, I really expected *someone* here would have mentioned it by now.

It was a couple of years ago. It was IBM, and I thought it did a pretty damn good job of explaining to the world WTF Linux is and why they should care.

and it was pretty damn awesome.

your sig

[m.ducharme]

I tried it, this is what I got: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=qqqqq+ Unintended consequences?

Ding, Ding, Ding!!!

[Vr6dub]

That shit is annoying. I can't believe it didn't come up during discussion of the idea.

Subject

[Legion303]

When I want to read about ads I go to digg, but thanks anyway.

digg dugg.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Moderation sucks and slashdot moderations suck harder. Read at -1, ignore the moderation and skim past the offensive posts."

I've always found it interesting that a site that goes on so much about "freedom" and "my rights" has no problem with a third-party dictating what they should see and what not.

Anyway moderation works. It's called filters and it works great on Usenet. Unfortunately it takes work.

"Any web site that keeps readers for over a decade is doing something right."

Any company that keeps it's customers must be doing something right.

Re:digg dugg.

[SL Baur]

It's called filters and it works great on Usenet. Unfortunately it takes work. Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen's scoring mode in Gnus was a great idea at the time, but even with work it didn't work all that well in real life (sorry Lars).

Google seems to do a little better with gmail, but it's far from perfect and is getting worse over time as SPAMmers get more sophisticated. I regularly have mailing list mail misfiled as SPAM and get SPAM in my inbox. I also have a decade+ old email address that I've used to post to Usenet.

Any company[microsoft.com] that keeps it's customers must be doing something right. Ouch. You win (except for the grammar - it's "its" not "it's"). I guess I'll stop reading and post my Slashdot account on Ebay for sale.

Best line ever...

[CrazyTalk]

"Everybody wants to work in marketing" from GoDaddy.com last year.

What is? Where where am I?

[BcNexus]

What is idle.slashdot.org?

How do I make it work? Why is it so obtuse?

Where is the idle.slashdot "About" or "Help"?

Why does this suck so much like Rotten Tomato's redesign?

/. doesn't need a fancy asymmetric interface to be web 2.0; community involvement is web 2.0!

/. was already web 2.0 a decade ago!

The best scam TV ever pulled off

[Anonymous Coward]

The best scam TV ever pulled off was convincing the world that superbowl commercials were some kind of cultural phenomenon worthy of extra attention and discussion. Think about it: Who incubated this meme in the public consciousness? TV did. TV told us that superbowl commercials were cool, and now superbowl commercials are cool. And now TV gets to demand obscene amounts of money for those advertising slots. I cringe every time I see some story on a site like Slashdot or Digg about this garbage. It's fucking MARKETING you dolts. It's not interesting. You're talking about MARKETING. Are you fucking insane? Who seriously gives a shit? My only consolation is that Taco's professional attitude towards administrating a large news site has once again prevailed, and nobody is talking about superbowl ads. Because frankly, fuck superbowl ads. I don't want to live in a world where people outside of marketing departments say things like "This years ads are coming soon" in eager anticipation. I want to meet the person who came up with the idea of applying marketing techniques to marketing itself, and choke the life out of him with my bare fucking hands.

There's kind of a tech connection to the S*bowl...

[markana]

Remember the recent post about the NFL claiming all intellectual property related to the game? Including trademarking every related name? Kind of like the ridiculously-overreaching IP grabs you see in the tech space all the time.

(If you missed the post the other day, I'm sure the editors will repeat it soon with a slightly-different title... :-)

On a brighter note, I hear that the trademark "19-0"(tm) is going for next to nothing these days :-)

("19-0" is a trademark of the New England Patriots Football Team, and should only be used when referring to their official hubris).

Wasaaappp !!!!

[dapprman]

Didn't Budweiser do an alien wasaaap advert one superbowel ?

Being a Brit I only saw this video after so have no proof, but rather liked what I saw.

Whato.

I have only one thing to say

[edittard]

This new layout is atriocious, I can't read a thing. Anything it doesn't overlap it truncates.

But, I am glad pets.com went bust. With an ad like that, they deserved it.

Article does whatever the hell it wants to

[illegalcortex]

What's really weird is even though I have /. set to "Low Bandwidth", this story ignores it. The summary on the main page has a graphic icon next to it rather than the Low Bandwidth standard text link. And clicking on the article leads to the full high bandwidth layout (with the new "improvements").

Where are the Cat Cowboys?

[teleny]

I always liked the catherds...those brave men who herd cats through the prairie. Jeez, I miss that site that archived commercials....

Re:Where are the Cat Cowboys?

[thetheorist]

Cat herding commercial: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WxwTC13f1PE

Best commercial ever without a doubt, and as it is by a company that provides tech services, seems like it should be included here.

Re:There's kind of a tech connection to the S*bowl

[giafly]

I get "We're sorry, the clip you are trying to play is not currently available in your area.". Seems even adverts are DRM'd nowadays.