Advertising companies realized years ago that most people were suspicious of them (with reason) and would take the word of a friend or any other 'regular person' over what an advertiser said. That lead to series of commercials with man on the street interviews and things like that. Word of mouth advertising has been popular for years, but the ad companies let actual human beings, 'regular people', do it for them both in advertising and by passing the word to others.
Today people mistrust the ads they see more than ever, and most advertising gets ignored because it's just all over the place. So, the ad firms are taking it beyond just word of mouth and dependence on people to recommend their products to others. Now the ad firms are stepping in and trying to appear like they actually are the 'regular people' consumer advocates and fans. Movie studios are setting up fake fan sites, software companies create user groups that appear to be independent when they're anything but. IBM is just heading down that road with its graffiti and trying to make it look like Joe From Nextdoor likes their product. This particular incident is too professional to fool anyone into thinking that it's not just a well placed ad, but you get my point overall...
Last year I was hired by a particular hospital in a particular town (no point going into it) and I was treated in a similar manner as Sean. The people I worked with were lazy and filthy, a department full of ugly, overweight single mothers. When the boss was away they sat around eating and discussing their sex lives, nothing ever got done. I worked the last shift of the day, so of course every night I had to clean up messes they left. I did a better job than them, and I never hesitated reminding them of that (I realize now it was the wrong way to be).
So they kept a close eye on me, watching for every single mistake. After working there better than six months I was extremely frustrated and jokingly told a coworker from another department that I would have to shoot somebody to ever get anything done. The comment was immediately reported out of context back to the wonderful Human Resources department, which suspended me for a week without pay and required me to attend counseling sessions.
That made my frustration worse, of course, and about two weeks after I returned one of them started joking with me about being shot, and I made another ill-advised comment that was easy to take out of context. So the following workday the department supervisor called me at home and told me to report to his office. I did, and was immediately terminated. The supervisor then made me agree never to set foot on hospital property again in exchange for my last paycheck. They also reported it to local law enforcement. So, after giving the company more than half a year of my life I lost my stored vacation time, have a criminal report at the sheriff's office, and am banned from the only local hospital for the rest of my life. It isn't just the public schools, all of society is doing this. Not that I'm defending the school, mind you. (I was homeschooled, BTW)
Microsoft is going all out with its own monopolistic products, Windows and Office, to drive customers into the arms of.NET, its proprietary Internet-as-a-service scheme. The end goal is to have every Internet using paying Microsoft a fee. Give it a year; XML and HTML will be so corrupted that you can't help but use a Microsoft product to view the Internet.
Bribing Corel into using.NET in its own products is just a small step in locking us all into that mess. Considering Corel's recent financial trouble, selling its soul to the devil may have been easier than standing up for the right thing. I'm just thankful we still have products like StarOffice, ApplixWare, and AppleWorks that don't depend on.NET to function.
I phrased that incorrectly.. Here's what I meant to say there: MSN messenger offers incompatable features that AIM doesn't have. Those features may not be very desirable, but if you don't use MSNM the people that do will be able to do more things than you. It's just like Internet Explorer 4.0, it did a lot of the same things Netscape did, but the codes to do them weren't always the same. That fragmented the Web development community and did a lot of damage to Netscape.
That said, I should also correct another thing I said.. It turns out that AOl is blocking the Yahoo! software too, since that's the only way to keep MSNM users out. That was incorrect, but I stand by my original statement: MSN Messenger is just Microsoft's latest embrace, extend and smother move, aimed squarely at America Online.
Paul Rickard, President of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign - MSBC.SimpleNet.com
MSNM looks harmless now, it's just a way to get more people communicating and interacting, right? WRONG. This will be like Internet Explorer - at first it was just a joke, but then version three came out and everybody stopped laughing.
MSN Messenger (what a unique name) has started out like a joke, but before long it will come with every version of Windows and offer features far beyond what AIM has. Oops, you can't see what I'm doing because you're still using AIM. Better get the cool new one that lets you do more stuff! Heck, MSNM already lets its own users communicate with AIMers, but not vice-versa. How long before it totally makes AIM unnecessary?
AOL is justified to do what they're doing, AIM isn't a standard. If it was a standard, Ms could do like they did with the W3C and pollute the standards to favor their products. AOL has let Yahoo! get away with cloning AIM because the Y! one has the same features as AIM and works well with it. MSNM is just a plot to pull people away from AOL. More power to them for blocking it!
This decision really bothers me. Not so much because a group that didn't do anything beyond breaking privacy laws now has to pay $107 million, but because of what it means for the rest of the internet. I am responsible for a consumer advocacy web site that, at times, takes a negative attitude towards certain people in the computer industry. If we were to put the names and addresses of those people on our web site so they could be contacted, and then one of them was killed somehow, couldn't we face charges as a result of today's ruling? This limits my freedom of speech because it makes me scared to say _anything_ about _anyone_ that could later be taken as "promotion of violence."
Slashdot Mirror
Advertising companies realized years ago that most people were suspicious of them (with reason) and would take the word of a friend or any other 'regular person' over what an advertiser said. That lead to series of commercials with man on the street interviews and things like that. Word of mouth advertising has been popular for years, but the ad companies let actual human beings, 'regular people', do it for them both in advertising and by passing the word to others.
Today people mistrust the ads they see more than ever, and most advertising gets ignored because it's just all over the place. So, the ad firms are taking it beyond just word of mouth and dependence on people to recommend their products to others. Now the ad firms are stepping in and trying to appear like they actually are the 'regular people' consumer advocates and fans. Movie studios are setting up fake fan sites, software companies create user groups that appear to be independent when they're anything but. IBM is just heading down that road with its graffiti and trying to make it look like Joe From Nextdoor likes their product. This particular incident is too professional to fool anyone into thinking that it's not just a well placed ad, but you get my point overall...
Last year I was hired by a particular hospital in a particular town (no point going into it) and I was treated in a similar manner as Sean. The people I worked with were lazy and filthy, a department full of ugly, overweight single mothers. When the boss was away they sat around eating and discussing their sex lives, nothing ever got done. I worked the last shift of the day, so of course every night I had to clean up messes they left. I did a better job than them, and I never hesitated reminding them of that (I realize now it was the wrong way to be).
So they kept a close eye on me, watching for every single mistake. After working there better than six months I was extremely frustrated and jokingly told a coworker from another department that I would have to shoot somebody to ever get anything done. The comment was immediately reported out of context back to the wonderful Human Resources department, which suspended me for a week without pay and required me to attend counseling sessions.
That made my frustration worse, of course, and about two weeks after I returned one of them started joking with me about being shot, and I made another ill-advised comment that was easy to take out of context. So the following workday the department supervisor called me at home and told me to report to his office. I did, and was immediately terminated. The supervisor then made me agree never to set foot on hospital property again in exchange for my last paycheck. They also reported it to local law enforcement. So, after giving the company more than half a year of my life I lost my stored vacation time, have a criminal report at the sheriff's office, and am banned from the only local hospital for the rest of my life. It isn't just the public schools, all of society is doing this. Not that I'm defending the school, mind you. (I was homeschooled, BTW)
Microsoft is going all out with its own monopolistic products, Windows and Office, to drive customers into the arms of .NET, its proprietary Internet-as-a-service scheme. The end goal is to have every Internet using paying Microsoft a fee. Give it a year; XML and HTML will be so corrupted that you can't help but use a Microsoft product to view the Internet.
Bribing Corel into using .NET in its own products is just a small step in locking us all into that mess. Considering Corel's recent financial trouble, selling its soul to the devil may have been easier than standing up for the right thing. I'm just thankful we still have products like StarOffice, ApplixWare, and AppleWorks that don't depend on .NET to function.
Paul Rickard, Editor, The Microsoft Boycott Campaign
I phrased that incorrectly.. Here's what I meant to say there: MSN messenger offers incompatable features that AIM doesn't have. Those features may not be very desirable, but if you don't use MSNM the people that do will be able to do more things than you. It's just like Internet Explorer 4.0, it did a lot of the same things Netscape did, but the codes to do them weren't always the same. That fragmented the Web development community and did a lot of damage to Netscape.
That said, I should also correct another thing I said.. It turns out that AOl is blocking the Yahoo! software too, since that's the only way to keep MSNM users out. That was incorrect, but I stand by my original statement: MSN Messenger is just Microsoft's latest embrace, extend and smother move, aimed squarely at America Online.
Paul Rickard, President of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign - MSBC.SimpleNet.com
MSNM looks harmless now, it's just a way to get more people communicating and interacting, right? WRONG. This will be like Internet Explorer - at first it was just a joke, but then version three came out and everybody stopped laughing.
MSN Messenger (what a unique name) has started out like a joke, but before long it will come with every version of Windows and offer features far beyond what AIM has. Oops, you can't see what I'm doing because you're still using AIM. Better get the cool new one that lets you do more stuff! Heck, MSNM already lets its own users communicate with AIMers, but not vice-versa. How long before it totally makes AIM unnecessary?
AOL is justified to do what they're doing, AIM isn't a standard. If it was a standard, Ms could do like they did with the W3C and pollute the standards to favor their products. AOL has let Yahoo! get away with cloning AIM because the Y! one has the same features as AIM and works well with it. MSNM is just a plot to pull people away from AOL. More power to them for blocking it!
This decision really bothers me. Not so much because a group that didn't do anything beyond breaking privacy laws now has to pay $107 million, but because of what it means for the rest of the internet.
I am responsible for a consumer advocacy web site that, at times, takes a negative attitude towards certain people in the computer industry. If we were to put the names and addresses of those people on our web site so they could be contacted, and then one of them was killed somehow, couldn't we face charges as a result of today's ruling?
This limits my freedom of speech because it makes me scared to say _anything_ about _anyone_ that could later be taken as "promotion of violence."