Windows 7's Media Hype Having the Opposite Effect As Vista's

Death Metal Maniac tips an Ars Technica piece suggesting that the media's coverage of Vista's flaws portrayed the operating system as worse than it was, and, if early reports on Windows 7 are any indication, positive hype will create the opposite reaction this time around. Quoting: "... the problem is exaggeration; ... bloggers and journalists alike use their personal experiences to prove their point in their writing. The blame doesn't solely lie with us, as Vista was by no means perfect, but we did manage to amplify the problems beyond reason. And if the beta is anything to go by, Windows 7 is going to fly. This is, by far, the best beta operating system the software giant has ever released. The media has locked on to this, and is using exaggeration already, before Windows 7 is even ready for prime time." Apparently a decent beta can succeed where $300 million and Jerry Seinfeld failed.

Comments

Re:Well

[thetartanavenger]

We are not all quite as lucky as you.

Obsessed much?

[denzacar]

Windows 7 is literally putting lipstick on a pig!

What is it with you and the pigs? You a farmer or something?

The end end-user

[w0mprat]

Vista created backlash largely from people who are not great computer users.

It comes down to 'us' and 'them':
we/us like to tinker with stuff that is new and cool, for example myself I tinker with a new linux distro or something every second day it seems. I like learning and I get bored when I've mastered something or completed a project and move on. You know the kind of person. Now, I installed Vista, had no problems, or at least any problems I had were overcome without thinking. I also had no problems negotiating the new interface without having previously studied up or read anything. I Good. Infact, for someone fairly new to computers, Vista would be excellent.

The problem is "them", the people that don't like comptuers, can't use them well, and have stuggled for years to make it do anything they need to do. You know the kind of people, they still have the Bliss XP background, after years of owning their computer. Or they call the Office IT deptartment twice a day. These people have a different first reaction to us when you go and do something like change, oh, just about everything in the interface of your OS.

Where we may see a challenge when presented with something new and difficult, they may experience unfamiliarity, anger, frustration, and they will decide their opinion of vista based on this. Back in my support days, after a XP roll out, we had calls from users claiming their pc had been hacked because the menus had changed and they were looking at green hills and blue sky.

So while Vista was actually good, but troubled, there is still a huge user base who were going to complain if anything was changed, regardless if it was better or not. Because we know these kind of people, any change, even if a huge improvement is bad, because they have already once struggled to learn to use The Computer or IntraWebs at all, let alone have to learn new things.

You need to bear in mind these people are often baby boomers, who grew up in a world where there wasn't the pace of change we see today. They had decades before disruptive IT tech tipped up.

Now I understand the us/them thing, what I don't understand is the implied viewpoint from the blogosphere on Vista? How do expert bloggers complain about the kinds of things that none experts have a valid gripe about?