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?

[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?

[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?

[mortonda]

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

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.

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...

[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...

[VultureMN]

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

errr.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I preferred the ponies.

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

[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.

oh my god

[hav0x]

the goggles! they do nothing!

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

[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?

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?

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.

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.

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:godaddy

[Grimoire]

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

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.

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: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.

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?

My personal favorite

[wkitchen]

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

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...

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?

[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: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.

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.

Super Bowl?!!

[CyberLife]

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

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.

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.