That seems likely. I believe I did see it on PBS, and I do like Frontline. But it was years ago, so I'm not sure.
Another good documentary on this topic is The Century of the Self. Combined I think they've shaped my concept of advertising/marketing even more than working in advertising for a short stint.
Losing community support means spending more money on development. Not courting geeks means losing sales-- and not just sales from geeks. All the various geeks have a pretty big impact on what people use. People who don't know what to buy or whether something is good often rely on the advice of geeks. I know people ask me all the time what kind of computer they should buy.
I'm not saying that can't or shouldn't fork anything, but rather they should only fork when they community for a given project is unhelpful towards their goals. But I don't see a good reason to force the issue and fork everything, making a big schism between themselves and the open source community.
Being ignorant, that is to say, having little or no knowledge of a subject, does not mean that someone is incapable of learning (stupid.)
I didn't mean to imply that these people were stupid. I was saying that they don't understand how computers work, and they don't necessarily want to. And I don't blame them. I find it hard to imagine not being interested in how computers work, but then there are plenty of things that I'm not interested in that other people are. I don't want to be talked down to because I'm not interested in your job or hobby.
The real question is, does HP need Microsoft more than Microsoft needs HP?
I think either way, major PC vendors would have to be a bit stupid to not have some kind of plan for an alternative to MS. Regardless of how far along they are into the implementation, they should at least have a plan for what happens if they were to stop using Windows.
That's just the sort of thing that you do when your business is dependent on another company. If you're running Dell or HP, that should be one of your big concerns. What happens if Microsoft somehow goes belly-up? What OS do we use if we decide we're tired of using Windows? Even if they don't intend to put the plan into action, it still helps their business. The more feasible the plan is, the more leverage they have when negotiating with Microsoft.
If I ran one of these companies, I'd be looking to Apple's recent success and wondering if I could try something similar. Using an open source base gives you a head start and lets you avoid reinventing the wheel. Making your own version means you have complete control for anything you want to do, and you don't have to rely on any other companies.
Just to go a little further, most people do not understand the concept of "operating system". I've tried talking to people about it before, and it's weird, but and I've even had to explain to people before that there's a difference between "the system" and "an application". In other words, not all computers have Microsoft Office, because that's an application that needs to be installed. Some people don't understand the difference between "the Internet" and a web browser.
When you talk about "the system", it can be pretty hard to explain to people what an operating system is, because they don't have a very good idea of what's done by the hardware and what's software. Some people think the "My Computer" icon is somewhere in the computer, almost physically, and they don't have a very good concept of how it can go away. Hell, in the early days of my desktop support, I had to explain to a couple people that "that box" was the computer, and without it "the computer" (i.e. the monitor) won't work.
I know it's sounds crazy to people here, but lots of people don't know and don't care. At most, they know how to use a computer for the things they want to use it for. At long as they can do that without too much hassle, you can give them any OS you want.
Why would they have to do that? It seems like they'd gain more fans and get continued community support by not-forking.
I agree that it might be to their benefit to go their own way and optimize for their own purposes, but if they start from Linux, they're going to have release the source code anyway. Purposefully making it hard to patch those improvements back into the vanilla code is going to piss off a bunch of potential customers, and make it harder to port community improvements over to their version.
Linux will be a successful desktop OS if someone can put enough pressure on major desktop app developers to release their software to on it. Or, depending on your criteria, Linux is already a successful desktop OS.
The apple gurus are *not* sales folks and I have had them send me other places rather than buy an over priced adapter (ironically they sent me to best buy) meanwhile the 'The (Microsoft) Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs'. Yea thats what MS need more sales pressure at best buy...
The original Apple store in SoHo used to be famous for sending people to other stores, particularly Tekserv (an older store that specialized in Apple-related products), whenever the customer would be better served by that other store. Since the store was being run by Apple, they were more interested in making sure people were happy with their Apple products than making a quick buck from an overpriced sale.
I'm not sure if they still do that, though. I haven't been in there in a pretty long time.
How about, "I don't want a computer with Vista, I want one with that new Mojave thing I've been hearing about." And then no matter how clearly they explain it, pretend to be confused. When the fun runs out, say something about, "I don't know why Microsoft would lie to people like that!" and then walk away.
It's not that *you* are controlled, but rather their product is controlled. Microsoft sells a license to Gateway for a copy of Windows, but they don't necessarily have a lot of control over what else is installed on the machine or what hardware it has. Apparently they have some control through licensing arrangements, but not much.
Whereas with Apple, they control the hardware and nothing comes pre-installed without Apple's consent. The poster is just noting that Apple controls the product that you get when you buy a computer and Microsoft doesn't. Once you have the computer, though, you can do anything you can do on a Dell, with the addition of running OSX legally.
Yeah, I'm all for being polite and all that, but I wouldn't be happy if my printer broke after 5 months, and honestly I'm generally pissed when someone at one of those chain electronic stores tries to sell me a warranty.
The problem with those warranties is not so much, IMO, that they're overpriced or anything. My complaint is that nobody honors them. They're usually written in such a way that they exclude the store from fixing anything that's caused by accidental damage, and also say that any "manufacturing defects" will be covered by the manufacturer and not by their warranty. The problem is, pretty much every time something breaks, it can be categorized as either "accidental damage" or a "manufacturing defect", and so their warranty effectively covers *nothing*.
I've had a couple different stores do that to me, and even had employees lie to me about the terms of the warranty. I've talked to the manager of the store, and I've talked to customer service people in the corporate offices, and nobody made any efforts to help me in any way. At one of the stores (a CompUSA in Manhattan) the store manager even called me names and lied to me, even though I was being polite.
The most recent time it happened, I talked to a lawyer friend of mine who said, "Yup, that's a problem. You can try taking them to small claims court, and you might be able to get back the cost of the warranty." That's it. Not the cost of the product I bought or the cost of fixing it.
Warranties are a rip-off, pure and simple. These days, if a salesperson at an electronics store tries to sell me one (beyond simply asking, "are you interested in the warranty?") then I tell them, as politely as I possibly can, to go screw themselves.
The last thing that would make me buy Vista is more people pitching the damn thing to me. I don't hate it, but knowing that I could bring the machine in to have someone actually look at it and not have to fail at diagnosing it over the phone from India would be a HUGE selling point for most people. Not the geeks of Slashdot for the most part, but at least for the majority of those who have attempted to use phone support.
Where you hit a bit of a problem, though, is that Microsoft is just providing the OEM software, and other people provide the hardware. Even if Microsoft wanted to provide tech support like this, what do they do when it's a hardware/driver problem?
So there's an advantage that Apple has by selling an integrated hardware/software platform. It allows them to provide a better experience and provide better support. At least in theory.
True, but your missing the point. I saw a documentary on this a while ago, and they played two coffee commercials back-to-back, one from the 50s and one from the 90s. The ad from the 50s actually talked about how good the coffee tasted, while the commercial from the 90s showed a man and a woman in a cozy setting, drinking out of coffee cups (you never saw the coffee) and enjoying a romantic conversation.
The point is, they aren't selling you the coffee, they're trying to sell you the emotional feeling. Their goal is to get you to subconsciously associate their brand with warm-fuzzy feelings of romance. Showing the scene of a couple in a cozy environment is a way of generating that feeling, and showing the coffee cups and the box of coffee creates the association, but it really isn't about showing you the product or telling you anything about the product.
But Gates is a psychological stand-in for Microsoft, and serves well enough to generate the association. In order to make you feel warmly about Microsoft, the makers of this commercial believe that it will be sufficient to get you to feel warmly about Gates. Whether that's true or whether the commercial succeeds in getting you to feel warmly about Gates are separate issues. I'm just telling you what the ad agency is trying to do here.
The point is, commercials today often have nothing to do with the product, and the people making the commercials don't want you to think about the product. They just want you to feel a specific emotion in connection to their brand, and they'll try to create that association in any way they can, whether it includes showing the product or not.
Now as to why they don't really show any Microsoft products, I have some guesses. First, you know the products already. You've seen Windows. If you'd consider buying an XBox, then you already know what one is and probably know the advantages/disadvantages compared to other platforms. Talking about their products is about as useless as Coke trying to describe the flavor of their cola; you know what Coca-Cola tastes like.
In fact, a lot of people associate Microsoft Windows with "frustration", so showing their product might only serve to bring those feelings to the forefront. Also, the bad associations people have with Microsoft are that Microsoft is a big, powerful, pushy company. So not showing their product can serve to counter that, because there's no way you can watch those commercials and feel like they're pushing their product on you.
Finally, not showing the product can work in a sort of reverse-psychology kind of way. Jerry keeps asking Bill about plans for future products, and Bill shows the kid a game that's not released, and we don't get to see it. By refusing to show us their current products or possible future products, they might be trying to get you to ask, "what cool things might Microsoft be working on?"
Yes, well that's pretty much what advertisers are trying to foster-- "fanboi-ism", if that's what you want to call it (I wouldn't favor that term). Advertisers have studied various movies and products that have cult followings, and they've even studied cults.
Apple is widely seen as a success to be emulated. Advertisers spend a lot of time trying to generate the sort of attachment to a brand that Apple customers have to the Apple brand.
Note: I'm not saying anything bad about Apple. I'm typing this on a Mac. Part of what attaches people to a brand is a genuine attachment to the product, which is not something that advertisers are necessarily interested in (though they sometimes are). Their mission is to figure out how to generate that attachment, on demand, for any arbitrary product.
My point is that people who make ads aren't trying to tell you anything about the product, they're trying to foster an emotional attachment to the brand. That's what this commercial is trying to do. It doesn't really work for me, but I don't know whether it will work on other people.
You would have no idea that it's a commercial about an OS.
I guess it's not really an ad for an Windows, but rather an ad for Microsoft in general. To clarify ads these days are rarely about the product. Really, the next time you're watching TV, watch all the ads carefully, and ask yourself regarding each one, "What does this tell me about the product?"
Established brands rarely tell you anything about the product unless they're introducing something new. For example, Coke commercials. They might have someone holding a coke bottle or maybe even taking a sip, but the commercial doesn't have any "information" about Coke. McDonald's is the same way. Unless they're introducing a new sandwich or something, they don't talk about the product. They just show someone holding the bag or taking a bite out of the sandwich. But you know what? Everyone who takes a bite of the Big Mac or a sip of that Coke have some things in common: They're happy and attractive and having fun!
Current advertising theory holds that there's no point in giving people information, because people don't make "rational decisions". They make their decisions based on emotional attachments. So what advertisers aim to do is to attach a positive emotion with a product on a subconscious level, so that when you think about that product, you feel good. That good feeling makes you more likely to buy that product.
The holy grail of advertising is to be a part of an entire subculture that's attractive and happy and cool, a subculture that people want to be a part of, and to have their product be synonymous with their product. They want to make you feel like you can't be a part of the culture that you belong to without owning that product. They want you to feel like you're not yourself without that product.
Now I don't know how successful these ads will be, but it's clear that they're trying to remake the Microsoft image. They're trying to construct the emotional response you feel when you think about Microsoft, because the current emotional response from a lot of people consists mainly of frustration. So instead, they're trying to make Gates, as the embodiment of Microsoft, come across as a quirky fun guy that you'd like to have around even if he is a little hapless. He may as well be saying, "Hey, I'm not perfect, but I'm kind of nice and fun and even helpful, so invite me into your home."
Done right, it could be a positive thing -- the employee could be asked,"Is there anything online that you don't want me to see?" and a decision to hire(or not) would be based on the level of the interviewee's honesty
Great, so when the perspective employee says, "No, don't look online under my name," they'll be pretty much dismissed on the idea that they're hiding things. No problem there.
How about people just stop posting pictures of themselves and their friends smoking pot on the internet? It's really retarded. Putting your "private life" on MySpace and expecting it to stay private is like running an ad in the newpaper about your "private life" and then getting upset when people know about it.
Actions have consequences. If doing something is going to cause you trouble, consider not doing it. If you're going to do it anyway, consider not posting the evidence on a publicly-accessible worldwide network.
This article fails to address anything meaningful. It has no facts, no helpful statistics, and no meaningful analysis
When I read the Slashdot headline, my immediate two questions were:
What is a "touchscreen war"?
How is victory measured in a touchscreen war?
I may be about to harp on a point that's completely stupid and trivial, but I'm going to do it anyway. (incidentally, this isn't aimed at the post I'm replying to, but it seemed like the best thing to reply to)
Please, everyone, stop talking about "wars" and "killers" when you talk about technology. When you use that language, you're being stupid. You're trivializing what it means to be at war or be a killer, and you sound like an idiot. There are no "browser wars" or "iPod killers". All of that is meaningless jargon that's meant to sound cool but doesn't. Please stop.
Apple is not making war on touchscreens, nor are they making war with touchscreens. They're producing a couple of products that happen to have touch screens, and other companies are doing the same. These companies may be competing for the same consumer dollars in some markets, but there isn't any war. Why the hell would Apple set a goal of having a majority share of touchscreen-based products anyhow? That doesn't make any kind of sense, especially since they've patented some touchscreen techniques and could probably license those patents to other companies. Even in competing against cellphone manufacturers, Apple doesn't seem to be aiming to take over completely. They're making plenty of money as it is.
So no, there's no fighting, no killing, no wars, and Apple isn't losing anything. Please shut up.
I think that comic really is illustrative of something. There are lots of instances where, outside of the laboratory, it's better to learn something quickly than to learn it thoroughly and scientifically. Not just "in the wild", but here in now in our advanced society, it's useful for survival that we learn as quickly as possible.
How do you act when you walk through a dangerous neighborhood? Do you walk around with a big smile, introducing yourself to everyone? Do you walk around insulting random people? Did you have to make those mistakes a lot of times before learning, or did you "exercise common sense" or mimic someone else?
We have various little tricks for learning things very quickly, whether they're inherited or learned. If we didn't have these methods, you'd probably drink drano the first time you saw it, just to figure out what it tastes like. We be complete morons, incapable of getting anything done without killing ourselves. The cost of all this quick and efficient learning is that sometimes we jump to conclusions, and sometimes we follow entrenched ideas even if they don't make sense. Everyone does it sometimes. You're not immune.
If the nature of the cellular marketplace is that the normal laws of competition do not apply, that is the point at which the government needs to step in....I don't know the best answer, but it is high time that something be done.
I know lots of people won't agree, but I more or less do. Personally, I don't agree with the viewpoint that our communications infrastructure is none of the government's business, or that access to that infrastructure should be a luxury for the rich. Yeah, being able to afford $100 a month cell phone bill in addition to a $60/month broadband connection makes you relatively well-off. Believe it or not, there are people who can't afford it.
Also, insofar that the various levels of government are controlling who has access to which radio spectra and who gets to lay cable where, providing access to some people and not others, it's also their responsibility to make sure that those resources are being used in favor of the public good.
I'm not sure there's so much collusion...Sure, there's been inflation, but there's also less competition.
So what you're saying is there might not be explicit collusion, but acknowledging that with a small number of entrenched players, competition is effectively nil. But effectively, what's the difference?
I don't see that browsers have made any wondrous leaps of progress due to competition.
Right, because we all should be using Netscape 4. Or are you forgetting that browsers have come a long way. In fact, I remember a little upstart browser called "Phoenix" that was competing with the Mozilla Suite. I wonder whatever happened to that browser. Hell, Webkit is the competing "alternative" rendering engine right now, and it probably going to help push Mozilla to improve Firefox even more. The success of Webkit is in itself evidence that 1 browser is not enough, that competition works.
But even if you're not going to accept the idea that browsers have progressed all this time specifically due to competition and innovation from outside parties, let's look at the case of IE. When Microsoft thought they had the whole browser thing wrapped up, they simply ceased development on the browser. It wasn't until Firefox took a big chunk of their market that they announced plans for IE7, and now they're working on IE8.
Yup. I don't know how many times it has to be said, but apparently people keep forgetting: monoculture is *bad*. Like "crossing the streams" bad. People keep thinking that we want one OS with one UI and one browser, and yes, there's something attractive about the prospect. It raises the possibility that we could all put our efforts into one thing and make it the best.
Except that's not what happens. Instead, there's no competition, and there isn't a lot of freedom to make improvements unless everyone else also understands your vision wants the same improvements. Innovation suffers. Cool things stop being built.
Plus, it's bad for security, because any bug or flaw is automatically present in *everything*. You know the argument that Windows gets hits by so many viruses because it's such a large target? Yeah. That's why it's better to have a bunch of different implementations.
But the important thing is that they're implementing the same standards. As long as they're rendering HTML and CSS the same way, we can all visit the same sites and see the same thing. So really there's no problem. There's absolutely no reason to want them to stop work on Gecko. If you prefer using a webkit-based browser, that's great-- use it! If you prefer using a Gecko-based browser, that's great too. If you prefer using IE, on the other hand, then you're just causing problems.
Sorry, I know some people are going to think that last bit is anti-Microsoft fanaticism, but it's not. I won't have any problem with IE once MS gets on board and makes it render HTML/CSS properly. In fact, the diversity represented by Windows and IE is good for the Internet as an ecosystem, provided they start using standard protocols and formats.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's just be happy this isn't devolving into another debate about science/religion.
Sounds like a Frontline documentary I've watched a couple years back.
frontline: the persuaders
That seems likely. I believe I did see it on PBS, and I do like Frontline. But it was years ago, so I'm not sure.
Another good documentary on this topic is The Century of the Self. Combined I think they've shaped my concept of advertising/marketing even more than working in advertising for a short stint.
Losing community support means spending more money on development. Not courting geeks means losing sales-- and not just sales from geeks. All the various geeks have a pretty big impact on what people use. People who don't know what to buy or whether something is good often rely on the advice of geeks. I know people ask me all the time what kind of computer they should buy.
I'm not saying that can't or shouldn't fork anything, but rather they should only fork when they community for a given project is unhelpful towards their goals. But I don't see a good reason to force the issue and fork everything, making a big schism between themselves and the open source community.
Being ignorant, that is to say, having little or no knowledge of a subject, does not mean that someone is incapable of learning (stupid.)
I didn't mean to imply that these people were stupid. I was saying that they don't understand how computers work, and they don't necessarily want to. And I don't blame them. I find it hard to imagine not being interested in how computers work, but then there are plenty of things that I'm not interested in that other people are. I don't want to be talked down to because I'm not interested in your job or hobby.
The real question is, does HP need Microsoft more than Microsoft needs HP?
I think either way, major PC vendors would have to be a bit stupid to not have some kind of plan for an alternative to MS. Regardless of how far along they are into the implementation, they should at least have a plan for what happens if they were to stop using Windows.
That's just the sort of thing that you do when your business is dependent on another company. If you're running Dell or HP, that should be one of your big concerns. What happens if Microsoft somehow goes belly-up? What OS do we use if we decide we're tired of using Windows? Even if they don't intend to put the plan into action, it still helps their business. The more feasible the plan is, the more leverage they have when negotiating with Microsoft.
If I ran one of these companies, I'd be looking to Apple's recent success and wondering if I could try something similar. Using an open source base gives you a head start and lets you avoid reinventing the wheel. Making your own version means you have complete control for anything you want to do, and you don't have to rely on any other companies.
Just to go a little further, most people do not understand the concept of "operating system". I've tried talking to people about it before, and it's weird, but and I've even had to explain to people before that there's a difference between "the system" and "an application". In other words, not all computers have Microsoft Office, because that's an application that needs to be installed. Some people don't understand the difference between "the Internet" and a web browser.
When you talk about "the system", it can be pretty hard to explain to people what an operating system is, because they don't have a very good idea of what's done by the hardware and what's software. Some people think the "My Computer" icon is somewhere in the computer, almost physically, and they don't have a very good concept of how it can go away. Hell, in the early days of my desktop support, I had to explain to a couple people that "that box" was the computer, and without it "the computer" (i.e. the monitor) won't work.
I know it's sounds crazy to people here, but lots of people don't know and don't care. At most, they know how to use a computer for the things they want to use it for. At long as they can do that without too much hassle, you can give them any OS you want.
Why would they have to do that? It seems like they'd gain more fans and get continued community support by not-forking.
I agree that it might be to their benefit to go their own way and optimize for their own purposes, but if they start from Linux, they're going to have release the source code anyway. Purposefully making it hard to patch those improvements back into the vanilla code is going to piss off a bunch of potential customers, and make it harder to port community improvements over to their version.
Linux will be a successful desktop OS if someone can put enough pressure on major desktop app developers to release their software to on it. Or, depending on your criteria, Linux is already a successful desktop OS.
The apple gurus are *not* sales folks and I have had them send me other places rather than buy an over priced adapter (ironically they sent me to best buy) meanwhile the 'The (Microsoft) Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs'. Yea thats what MS need more sales pressure at best buy...
The original Apple store in SoHo used to be famous for sending people to other stores, particularly Tekserv (an older store that specialized in Apple-related products), whenever the customer would be better served by that other store. Since the store was being run by Apple, they were more interested in making sure people were happy with their Apple products than making a quick buck from an overpriced sale.
I'm not sure if they still do that, though. I haven't been in there in a pretty long time.
I mean, how much of it will be true, and how much of it will simply sound like a sales pitch from someone who drank the Kool Aid?
Well I, for one, can't wait until the training manuals for this job get leaked online.
How about, "I don't want a computer with Vista, I want one with that new Mojave thing I've been hearing about." And then no matter how clearly they explain it, pretend to be confused. When the fun runs out, say something about, "I don't know why Microsoft would lie to people like that!" and then walk away.
It's not that *you* are controlled, but rather their product is controlled. Microsoft sells a license to Gateway for a copy of Windows, but they don't necessarily have a lot of control over what else is installed on the machine or what hardware it has. Apparently they have some control through licensing arrangements, but not much.
Whereas with Apple, they control the hardware and nothing comes pre-installed without Apple's consent. The poster is just noting that Apple controls the product that you get when you buy a computer and Microsoft doesn't. Once you have the computer, though, you can do anything you can do on a Dell, with the addition of running OSX legally.
Yeah, I'm all for being polite and all that, but I wouldn't be happy if my printer broke after 5 months, and honestly I'm generally pissed when someone at one of those chain electronic stores tries to sell me a warranty.
The problem with those warranties is not so much, IMO, that they're overpriced or anything. My complaint is that nobody honors them. They're usually written in such a way that they exclude the store from fixing anything that's caused by accidental damage, and also say that any "manufacturing defects" will be covered by the manufacturer and not by their warranty. The problem is, pretty much every time something breaks, it can be categorized as either "accidental damage" or a "manufacturing defect", and so their warranty effectively covers *nothing*.
I've had a couple different stores do that to me, and even had employees lie to me about the terms of the warranty. I've talked to the manager of the store, and I've talked to customer service people in the corporate offices, and nobody made any efforts to help me in any way. At one of the stores (a CompUSA in Manhattan) the store manager even called me names and lied to me, even though I was being polite.
The most recent time it happened, I talked to a lawyer friend of mine who said, "Yup, that's a problem. You can try taking them to small claims court, and you might be able to get back the cost of the warranty." That's it. Not the cost of the product I bought or the cost of fixing it.
Warranties are a rip-off, pure and simple. These days, if a salesperson at an electronics store tries to sell me one (beyond simply asking, "are you interested in the warranty?") then I tell them, as politely as I possibly can, to go screw themselves.
The last thing that would make me buy Vista is more people pitching the damn thing to me. I don't hate it, but knowing that I could bring the machine in to have someone actually look at it and not have to fail at diagnosing it over the phone from India would be a HUGE selling point for most people. Not the geeks of Slashdot for the most part, but at least for the majority of those who have attempted to use phone support.
Where you hit a bit of a problem, though, is that Microsoft is just providing the OEM software, and other people provide the hardware. Even if Microsoft wanted to provide tech support like this, what do they do when it's a hardware/driver problem?
So there's an advantage that Apple has by selling an integrated hardware/software platform. It allows them to provide a better experience and provide better support. At least in theory.
True, but your missing the point. I saw a documentary on this a while ago, and they played two coffee commercials back-to-back, one from the 50s and one from the 90s. The ad from the 50s actually talked about how good the coffee tasted, while the commercial from the 90s showed a man and a woman in a cozy setting, drinking out of coffee cups (you never saw the coffee) and enjoying a romantic conversation.
The point is, they aren't selling you the coffee, they're trying to sell you the emotional feeling. Their goal is to get you to subconsciously associate their brand with warm-fuzzy feelings of romance. Showing the scene of a couple in a cozy environment is a way of generating that feeling, and showing the coffee cups and the box of coffee creates the association, but it really isn't about showing you the product or telling you anything about the product.
But Gates is a psychological stand-in for Microsoft, and serves well enough to generate the association. In order to make you feel warmly about Microsoft, the makers of this commercial believe that it will be sufficient to get you to feel warmly about Gates. Whether that's true or whether the commercial succeeds in getting you to feel warmly about Gates are separate issues. I'm just telling you what the ad agency is trying to do here.
The point is, commercials today often have nothing to do with the product, and the people making the commercials don't want you to think about the product. They just want you to feel a specific emotion in connection to their brand, and they'll try to create that association in any way they can, whether it includes showing the product or not.
Now as to why they don't really show any Microsoft products, I have some guesses. First, you know the products already. You've seen Windows. If you'd consider buying an XBox, then you already know what one is and probably know the advantages/disadvantages compared to other platforms. Talking about their products is about as useless as Coke trying to describe the flavor of their cola; you know what Coca-Cola tastes like.
In fact, a lot of people associate Microsoft Windows with "frustration", so showing their product might only serve to bring those feelings to the forefront. Also, the bad associations people have with Microsoft are that Microsoft is a big, powerful, pushy company. So not showing their product can serve to counter that, because there's no way you can watch those commercials and feel like they're pushing their product on you.
Finally, not showing the product can work in a sort of reverse-psychology kind of way. Jerry keeps asking Bill about plans for future products, and Bill shows the kid a game that's not released, and we don't get to see it. By refusing to show us their current products or possible future products, they might be trying to get you to ask, "what cool things might Microsoft be working on?"
Yes, well that's pretty much what advertisers are trying to foster-- "fanboi-ism", if that's what you want to call it (I wouldn't favor that term). Advertisers have studied various movies and products that have cult followings, and they've even studied cults.
Apple is widely seen as a success to be emulated. Advertisers spend a lot of time trying to generate the sort of attachment to a brand that Apple customers have to the Apple brand.
Note: I'm not saying anything bad about Apple. I'm typing this on a Mac. Part of what attaches people to a brand is a genuine attachment to the product, which is not something that advertisers are necessarily interested in (though they sometimes are). Their mission is to figure out how to generate that attachment, on demand, for any arbitrary product.
I'm not saying it's a great commercial, I'm just trying to explain the advertising theory behind it, i.e. "what they're *trying* to do."
My point is that people who make ads aren't trying to tell you anything about the product, they're trying to foster an emotional attachment to the brand. That's what this commercial is trying to do. It doesn't really work for me, but I don't know whether it will work on other people.
You would have no idea that it's a commercial about an OS.
I guess it's not really an ad for an Windows, but rather an ad for Microsoft in general. To clarify ads these days are rarely about the product. Really, the next time you're watching TV, watch all the ads carefully, and ask yourself regarding each one, "What does this tell me about the product?"
Established brands rarely tell you anything about the product unless they're introducing something new. For example, Coke commercials. They might have someone holding a coke bottle or maybe even taking a sip, but the commercial doesn't have any "information" about Coke. McDonald's is the same way. Unless they're introducing a new sandwich or something, they don't talk about the product. They just show someone holding the bag or taking a bite out of the sandwich. But you know what? Everyone who takes a bite of the Big Mac or a sip of that Coke have some things in common: They're happy and attractive and having fun!
Current advertising theory holds that there's no point in giving people information, because people don't make "rational decisions". They make their decisions based on emotional attachments. So what advertisers aim to do is to attach a positive emotion with a product on a subconscious level, so that when you think about that product, you feel good. That good feeling makes you more likely to buy that product.
The holy grail of advertising is to be a part of an entire subculture that's attractive and happy and cool, a subculture that people want to be a part of, and to have their product be synonymous with their product. They want to make you feel like you can't be a part of the culture that you belong to without owning that product. They want you to feel like you're not yourself without that product.
Now I don't know how successful these ads will be, but it's clear that they're trying to remake the Microsoft image. They're trying to construct the emotional response you feel when you think about Microsoft, because the current emotional response from a lot of people consists mainly of frustration. So instead, they're trying to make Gates, as the embodiment of Microsoft, come across as a quirky fun guy that you'd like to have around even if he is a little hapless. He may as well be saying, "Hey, I'm not perfect, but I'm kind of nice and fun and even helpful, so invite me into your home."
Done right, it could be a positive thing -- the employee could be asked,"Is there anything online that you don't want me to see?" and a decision to hire(or not) would be based on the level of the interviewee's honesty
Great, so when the perspective employee says, "No, don't look online under my name," they'll be pretty much dismissed on the idea that they're hiding things. No problem there.
How about people just stop posting pictures of themselves and their friends smoking pot on the internet? It's really retarded. Putting your "private life" on MySpace and expecting it to stay private is like running an ad in the newpaper about your "private life" and then getting upset when people know about it.
Actions have consequences. If doing something is going to cause you trouble, consider not doing it. If you're going to do it anyway, consider not posting the evidence on a publicly-accessible worldwide network.
This article fails to address anything meaningful. It has no facts, no helpful statistics, and no meaningful analysis
When I read the Slashdot headline, my immediate two questions were:
I may be about to harp on a point that's completely stupid and trivial, but I'm going to do it anyway. (incidentally, this isn't aimed at the post I'm replying to, but it seemed like the best thing to reply to)
Please, everyone, stop talking about "wars" and "killers" when you talk about technology. When you use that language, you're being stupid. You're trivializing what it means to be at war or be a killer, and you sound like an idiot. There are no "browser wars" or "iPod killers". All of that is meaningless jargon that's meant to sound cool but doesn't. Please stop.
Apple is not making war on touchscreens, nor are they making war with touchscreens. They're producing a couple of products that happen to have touch screens, and other companies are doing the same. These companies may be competing for the same consumer dollars in some markets, but there isn't any war. Why the hell would Apple set a goal of having a majority share of touchscreen-based products anyhow? That doesn't make any kind of sense, especially since they've patented some touchscreen techniques and could probably license those patents to other companies. Even in competing against cellphone manufacturers, Apple doesn't seem to be aiming to take over completely. They're making plenty of money as it is.
So no, there's no fighting, no killing, no wars, and Apple isn't losing anything. Please shut up.
I think that comic really is illustrative of something. There are lots of instances where, outside of the laboratory, it's better to learn something quickly than to learn it thoroughly and scientifically. Not just "in the wild", but here in now in our advanced society, it's useful for survival that we learn as quickly as possible.
How do you act when you walk through a dangerous neighborhood? Do you walk around with a big smile, introducing yourself to everyone? Do you walk around insulting random people? Did you have to make those mistakes a lot of times before learning, or did you "exercise common sense" or mimic someone else?
We have various little tricks for learning things very quickly, whether they're inherited or learned. If we didn't have these methods, you'd probably drink drano the first time you saw it, just to figure out what it tastes like. We be complete morons, incapable of getting anything done without killing ourselves. The cost of all this quick and efficient learning is that sometimes we jump to conclusions, and sometimes we follow entrenched ideas even if they don't make sense. Everyone does it sometimes. You're not immune.
If the nature of the cellular marketplace is that the normal laws of competition do not apply, that is the point at which the government needs to step in....I don't know the best answer, but it is high time that something be done.
I know lots of people won't agree, but I more or less do. Personally, I don't agree with the viewpoint that our communications infrastructure is none of the government's business, or that access to that infrastructure should be a luxury for the rich. Yeah, being able to afford $100 a month cell phone bill in addition to a $60/month broadband connection makes you relatively well-off. Believe it or not, there are people who can't afford it.
Also, insofar that the various levels of government are controlling who has access to which radio spectra and who gets to lay cable where, providing access to some people and not others, it's also their responsibility to make sure that those resources are being used in favor of the public good.
I'm not sure there's so much collusion...Sure, there's been inflation, but there's also less competition.
So what you're saying is there might not be explicit collusion, but acknowledging that with a small number of entrenched players, competition is effectively nil. But effectively, what's the difference?
I don't see that browsers have made any wondrous leaps of progress due to competition.
Right, because we all should be using Netscape 4. Or are you forgetting that browsers have come a long way. In fact, I remember a little upstart browser called "Phoenix" that was competing with the Mozilla Suite. I wonder whatever happened to that browser. Hell, Webkit is the competing "alternative" rendering engine right now, and it probably going to help push Mozilla to improve Firefox even more. The success of Webkit is in itself evidence that 1 browser is not enough, that competition works.
But even if you're not going to accept the idea that browsers have progressed all this time specifically due to competition and innovation from outside parties, let's look at the case of IE. When Microsoft thought they had the whole browser thing wrapped up, they simply ceased development on the browser. It wasn't until Firefox took a big chunk of their market that they announced plans for IE7, and now they're working on IE8.
Yup. I don't know how many times it has to be said, but apparently people keep forgetting: monoculture is *bad*. Like "crossing the streams" bad. People keep thinking that we want one OS with one UI and one browser, and yes, there's something attractive about the prospect. It raises the possibility that we could all put our efforts into one thing and make it the best.
Except that's not what happens. Instead, there's no competition, and there isn't a lot of freedom to make improvements unless everyone else also understands your vision wants the same improvements. Innovation suffers. Cool things stop being built.
Plus, it's bad for security, because any bug or flaw is automatically present in *everything*. You know the argument that Windows gets hits by so many viruses because it's such a large target? Yeah. That's why it's better to have a bunch of different implementations.
But the important thing is that they're implementing the same standards. As long as they're rendering HTML and CSS the same way, we can all visit the same sites and see the same thing. So really there's no problem. There's absolutely no reason to want them to stop work on Gecko. If you prefer using a webkit-based browser, that's great-- use it! If you prefer using a Gecko-based browser, that's great too. If you prefer using IE, on the other hand, then you're just causing problems.
Sorry, I know some people are going to think that last bit is anti-Microsoft fanaticism, but it's not. I won't have any problem with IE once MS gets on board and makes it render HTML/CSS properly. In fact, the diversity represented by Windows and IE is good for the Internet as an ecosystem, provided they start using standard protocols and formats.