> Now why should people who believe in that concept > get labeled as oddballs?
Good point.
There used to be an annoying guy I knew who insisted I was a "Mac bigot". Never mind the fact that he had to ask me how to troubleshoot his Windows 2000 machine, or that I had set up a Linux machine to host a SQL database fronted by PHP. The fact that I chose a PowerBook G4 as my primary computer meant that I was anti-Microsoft and thus technologically biased.
The truth was, he hated Apple emotionally but he couldn't say why.
I thought it was funny; I paid for Office v.X (most people that run Office for Windows tend to "borrow it from work"), I used Entourage for my email and contact manager (he used Netscape), and I even used Internet Explorer for browsing the web. In short, I had probably paid for more Microsoft software than him, and yet he considered me to be biased against Microsoft because I chose not to use Windows.
I finally asked him, "So how much Microsoft software do I have to run for you to not consider me biased?"
Apple is only obligated to go after trademark infringements by companies that are in similar industries. So, of course, they're not going to go after your local grocery store, carpet cleaning services, towing companies, maid services, or whatever else stuck "Apple" in their name so they'd be in the front of the phone book.
But a telecommunications company is fair game since Apple does telecommunications. With the convergence of computers and traditional telephony (e.g. VoIP, modems, 2.4 GHz wireless, DSL), the two industries are becoming basically the same thing these days.
Remember that Apple has one of the top 10 most recognized trademarks, and there are a lot of companies that wish to make some money (through name recognition) off that trademark. At the same time, they hope to mount a sympathy defense by citing how small they are.
I think he certainly knew what what he was doing when he named his company. I wouldn't be surprised if he hoped that Apple would buy him out to settle the naming rights in Australia (much the same way Microsoft did with "Internet Explorer), but they already had the global naming rights. After that didn't happen, he probably figured a $100,000 settlement is pretty cheap to get nationwide publicity for his company. He gets a newspaper article about him, and the sympathy of misguided trademark-haters around the world.
> But she says in the article, it was a true story...
Whoop! whoops! whoops!
I was moderating this article, and I originally choose your comment as "insightful", but somehow this changed to "overrated" when I used my scroll wheel to move down the article. I didn't notice this until I got the confirmation. Sorry, if this hurt your karma! Don't worry, I'll get mine when someone metamoderates me as "unfair".
Hopefully, when I post this message, slashdot will remove the points I awarded to this article, and your comment will be back to normal.
> One of the things that makes a physical protest > effective is that, well, it's physical. If you fill up > downtown Washington with people, somebody's > bound to notice (even politicians).
Even a physical protest can be ignored if there's no press. For example, families of the victims of the September 11 attack got together for a protest in D.C. earlier this year, but the march was virtually ignored because Ashcroft chose the exact same time to report on the alleged 'dirty bomb" suspect al Muhajir that they had arrested a month before.
Or more recently, it's been estimated that close to 100,000 people attended rallies around the country to protest the proposed Iraq Resolution. However, no one in the mainstream media except USA Today (IIRC) bothered to cover it.
Protests are generally only effective if they get the attention of everyone else via the mainstream press. The on-line protest of McDonalds might get some press once simply because of the novelty of it. But after that, it won't be very effective.
> Actually, I believe no modern watch claims to be >"waterproof", it's always "water resistant to xx meters"
Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches are designated as "waterproof": From their website: "An Officially Certified Swiss Chronometer, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual is equipped with a waterproof case, a sapphire crystal and a self-winding movement." Sorry, their site is too annoying to navigate, so I can't give an actual link.
Urban legend used to say that this was because Rolex trademarked the phrase "waterproof", so everyone else had to use "water resistant." I'm not sure if this is the case (I've never seen them stick TM at the end of the phrase in their literature), but the reason could be that Rolex watches are made a little differently than a regular watch.
Rolex Oyster watches are cast all in one piece or slug, rather than assembled from multiple pieces. As a result, when the watch is put together, it is basically sealed. The result is rather heavy -- to give you an idea, take off your shoe, attach that to your wrist, and then walk around for a while -- but they're built to last.
I'll add my "you shoulda billed 'em" charge to the rest. However, if you didn't negotiate that beforehand, it may look a little sleazy to bill them afterwards. And in my experience, you always meets your business associates later in your career.
Yes, your former boss had no business asking for your free time to help them after they laid you off, but if you agreed to help them at no charge (hoping for some consideration from them), then you might be stuck. Sending them a bill now might just turn your goodwill into bad since that's the last impression she would have of you.
I had a similar situation happen to me once. I left a company after I had built some custom software for them to do some traffic analysis. The VP was angry I left, but everyone else really wanted help to keep updating this application. Initially they wanted to pay me as a contractor (after I left and had another job!) so they could update his application, but the VP shot it down. At the same time, I didn't want to leave my former co-workers in the lurch, so I did them a favor. I told them that I would consult with them (but not touch any code) if they paid for lunch. I got a few free sushi lunches, they got the help they needed, and the VP ended up paying for the bills without knowing what it was about.
So even if you didn't want to explicitly charge your former boss, surely there was some way to get compensated for your time. If you didn't negotiate it the first time, at least you learned a quick lesson. Then again, if she called you once for help and got it, you can be sure that she'll call you again, so you may get your chance after all.
> Read David Brock for enlightenment? The guy's an > admitted liar! > So, was he lying then and telling the truth now, or was > he telling the truth then and lying now? I personally > think the latter. Maybe he lied both then AND now!
Congratulations: you've shown you've read the GOP's talking points about how to dismiss Brock's book without disputing anything said in it. I haven't seen a single conservative pundit show anything in the book to be false. They just say, "Oh, he admits to being a 'conservative hitman' against the Democrats. Therefore pay no attention to him now."
I encourage you read to the book for your own enlightenment. And while you're at it, check out Joe Conason's The Hunting of the President. Then draw your own conclusions; don't just regurgitate with the GOP tells you think.
> The Democrats will likely not oppose this bill en > masse, and if a few of them attempt such a tactic they > will undoubtably be accused of "holding Democracy > hostage".
Agreed. The Democrats that voted against the Iraq resolution were already accused of being soft on terrorism. As long as people accept what the Bush and GOP have been saying without question, the Democrats will continue to be powerless to respond.
> The bill would drop Senate language that would have > established an independent commission to > investigate why U.S. authorities failed to prevent the > Sept. 11 attacks, congressional aides said.
So Bush got what he wanted after all. No investigation into the security failures of Sept 11. Sheesh, did they eliminate the Freedom of Information Act too?
Anybody else feel like the U.S.'s Democracy is morphing into a plutocracy?
Newt Gingrich started the game back in 1994 when Bush Sr. lost the 1992 election. They put together a plan to make the world "Liberal" worse than "Communist" and basically wage the same war on the Democratic party that they waged on Communists before that. For more enlightenment, read David Brock's Blinded by the Right.
It doesn't go both ways though. I have never met a Democrat or Liberal that responds to the other side with the same visceral reaction as a conservative when you say, "Liberal"
Conservatives have learned since 1992 that if you say something enough times people will take it as conventional wisdom. For example, despite the fact that the media in general has been giving G.W. Bush a free ride since Sept 11, 2001, they still claim there's a "Liberal bias" to the media.
Re:Hasn't anyone heard of the IRS
on
HomeSec In the News
·
· Score: 4, Informative
> Remember, both Nixon and Clinton severely abused > the IRS' power by auditing all their enemies.
Nixon maybe, Clinton no.
Remember, our country spent almost $70 million dollars and two independent councils with unlimited subpoena power to investigate Clinton, and the only thing they came up with was some fellatio. Bill and Hillary go down as the most heavily investigated couple in the history of the U.S., so unless you've got a real court conviction to back up your accusation (which would be an impeachable offense), then don't bother lumping him in with Nixon.
> For every person who downloaded a song instead > of buying the album there are probably 3 or 4 > more who bought the album because they > downloaded the song.
I agree. For me, here are some examples:
1. I downloaded a couple of songs by Moby on Napster a while ago. Soon after, I went out and bought the whole album "Play". I had heard of Moby for years, but I didn't think I liked his stuff, so I wouldn't have bought the album otherwise.
2. I downloaded a few songs by a band called "Apples In Stereo". I liked the songs so much, I bought the whole album.
3. I downloaded four songs by Oasis. Later I bought two of their albums. I never would have bought the albums if I hadn't downloaded the songs first.
Now, I did this with plain old MP3s, iTunes, and my iPod. This isn't a case where time-limited music files would work because I often bought the albums months after I downloaded the songs.
Admittedly, the artists and record companies that haven't benefited are those where I heard one song I liked, but the others were inconsistent and I didn't like those. I think that's the reason the labels hate this. They realize unrestricted music sharing helps their good artists, but hurts their one hit wonders, their novelty acts, and similar artists.
I agree. If a company or person is going to do something disadvantageous to me, I'd rather them tell me the truth rather than avoid the issue. Or worse, tell me that whatever they're doing is to my advantage.
Yes, Mr. Bush, I am talking to you, and I am talking about the elimination of the so-called "death tax".
> You ever try to find a "Disposable Heroes of > HipHoprisy" album in the store?
If you like them, try out Consolidated (if you're not already listening to them); I think they were kind of related band to the Disposable Heros. Something off their Friendly Fa$cism album is a good place to start. And their song "Music Has No Meaning" has particular relevance to this article. As another one of their songs went, "If music is just inspired by a desire to make money, how interesting can it really be?"
Ever since election night, Consolidated has become more and more relevant.
> Has Jake Barnes every met a linux user? Or a BSD > user? Or a VMS user? Or hell, a BeOS or OS/2 > user?
Or a sports nut? Or a car nut? Or a gun nut? Everyone knows someone who is pretty passionate about something. However, being passionate about an operating system isn't as socially acceptable as painting yourself the team colors of some football team and screaming like a moron.
Personally, I think the "Mac nuts" are as nuts as all the other nuts. I like my Mac and I own shares in Apple, but why someone would get an Apple tattoo is something I don't understand.
> Can you prove that Apple's campaign is a success?
Not to be glib, but that's what I did.
Advertising can rarely be translated directly into sales, since there are so many factors involved in making a sale. A campaign can be a success if it brings more people into the store, even if they don't buy (that's a promotion success, but a sales failure). Thus, the direct goal of the advertisement is to get people to think about your product and act (hopefully buy, but not necessarily) upon it. From the example criteria I listed in my first message, I'd say Apple's campaign has been a success.
Note, you used the term "switch" even though you didn't buy a Mac. That meets criterion 1. If the ad prompted you at any time to go to Apple's web site and price out a new G4, then the campaign worked. (If you didn't do that, then I call into question your claim that the Mac would be $3,000 more)
To give you another example, the company I work for made Business 2.0's list of top 100 stupidest business decisions of 2001. Although most people wouldn't be happy about that, our promotions people responded with, "Great! There's no such thing as bad publicity!"
I'd say that your one lost sale hardly calls Apple's products into question. The buzz has been strong since Apple released Mac OS X about how there's finally a desktop Unix. Several respected Unix forums are now paying attention to Apple's products in a way that never would have happened with Mac OS 9: Slashdot's created its own Apple section, O'reilly has an entire series of books on Mac OS X, and former Linux users are gravitating to Apple's new offerings. For example, in a recent Byte article, the author talks about how he saw at a recent Linux conference, he saw "maybe 20 or 25 people running Mac OS X". Plus, in that article, the word "switch" was used three times in the context of someone moving from one computer platform to another. So the former is a sales/product success and the latter is an ad campaign success.
> if Saturday Night Live or someone painfully > mainstream would do a parody
That is, someone *else* painfully mainstream. Note you don't get points if the parody is done by someone hip, but relatively obscure. Thus, Jon Stewart can make a joke with the word "jingoism", so he doesn't count. Leno, Letterman, et al do count.
Thus, in terms of creating a "buzz", a successful marketing promoter is indistinguishable from a troll: it doesn't matter what people are saying, as long as they're talking about you.
I work in marketing too, and I think it is newsworthy because it shows that Apple's campaign is a success.
Since one can't generally can't make a correlation between an advertising campaign and increased sales (too much of a lag and too many factors), there are a few milestones for promotions that indicate success:
1. A coined term being adopted by the industry. In this case, "Switcher" is being used in all sorts of contexts, albeit in articles talking about Apple. But if someone in the computer industry uses the term "Switcher", most people in the know will think "Apple". I guarantee you someone in Intel's marketing department grins whenever an analyst talks soberly about "Moore's Law".
2. Grass roots movement/fan clubs: Exhibit A is Ellen Feiss. I doubt if anybody outside of Dell' marketing department builds fan sites for that annoying geek they're using
3. The competition is forced to respond to you. Pepsi constantly mentions Coke, but Coke never mentions Pepsi. But Pepsi's marketing department would love to see that happen. If anything, it's free advertising, because your product is being mentioned without you having to pay for it.
4. Finally, some sort of parody exists. I've seen a few on the web, but Apple would hit pay dirt if Saturday Night Live or someone painfully mainstream would do a parody. That would show that Apple's Switchers campaign has become a small zeitgeist, like the Mastercard "Priceless" ads.
The Microsoft ad was so bad because it was so easily dismissed. All the talking points could be dismissed just as easily as they are brought up. Make no mistake, someone in Apple's promotions department saw that pathetic Microsoft ad and grinned from ear to ear.
> I only saw the ghost in the shell after seeing the > matrix, and the entire time I'm like, damn! I see where > the matrix ripped off their ideas.
That happened to me, and I found myself saying the same thing. Between Ghost in the Shell and Dark City (both of which I liked better), I was left wondering if The Matrix had any creative ideas besides the "bullet time" visual effect.
The Matrix did have a redeeming factor for me with the hidden reference to The Prisoner, a show I recently got into.
> The last thing I want to here while watching Akira is > the lastest hit by Smash Mouth or techno drum beats > from the Chemical Brothers.
I agree that the original music was great, and I wouldn't want to see Americanized music added to Akira. A nit to pick, however: The Chemical Brothers do Big Beat (or generically Electronica), not Techno.
That does take me back to when I was in college. My roomate and I took the video sequence of the Clown battle from Akira and mixed in Meat Beat Manifesto's "Strap Down Part 2". Without even editing the video (just grab the sequences from when Kaneda puts the record on the jukebox until Tetsuo falls off the bike), the song matches almost perfectly. The vocal intro (starting at 30 seconds) even kind of sychs with Keneda's lips in the beginning.
Cool! Google has a few interesting articles on it like this, so I guess it's real. I may ask my optometrist about them. Sounds a little less scary than slices one's cornea.
> They put some numbing drops in my eyes and then > lowered this eyeball sized tubish thing over my > eye. It basically sucked onto and grabbed hold > of my eye, then a blade comes out of that to > slice a thin layer of the cornea.
Dear God! I was thinking of having it done, but your description made me do two things:
1. Think of "Minority Report" 2. Delete the To-Do to talk to my optometrist about LASIK.
Slashdot Mirror
> Now why should people who believe in that concept
> get labeled as oddballs?
Good point.
There used to be an annoying guy I knew who insisted I was a "Mac bigot". Never mind the fact that he had to ask me how to troubleshoot his Windows 2000 machine, or that I had set up a Linux machine to host a SQL database fronted by PHP. The fact that I chose a PowerBook G4 as my primary computer meant that I was anti-Microsoft and thus technologically biased.
The truth was, he hated Apple emotionally but he couldn't say why.
I thought it was funny; I paid for Office v.X (most people that run Office for Windows tend to "borrow it from work"), I used Entourage for my email and contact manager (he used Netscape), and I even used Internet Explorer for browsing the web. In short, I had probably paid for more Microsoft software than him, and yet he considered me to be biased against Microsoft because I chose not to use Windows.
I finally asked him, "So how much Microsoft software do I have to run for you to not consider me biased?"
Apple is only obligated to go after trademark infringements by companies that are in similar industries. So, of course, they're not going to go after your local grocery store, carpet cleaning services, towing companies, maid services, or whatever else stuck "Apple" in their name so they'd be in the front of the phone book.
But a telecommunications company is fair game since Apple does telecommunications. With the convergence of computers and traditional telephony (e.g. VoIP, modems, 2.4 GHz wireless, DSL), the two industries are becoming basically the same thing these days.
Remember that Apple has one of the top 10 most recognized trademarks, and there are a lot of companies that wish to make some money (through name recognition) off that trademark. At the same time, they hope to mount a sympathy defense by citing how small they are.
I think he certainly knew what what he was doing when he named his company. I wouldn't be surprised if he hoped that Apple would buy him out to settle the naming rights in Australia (much the same way Microsoft did with "Internet Explorer), but they already had the global naming rights. After that didn't happen, he probably figured a $100,000 settlement is pretty cheap to get nationwide publicity for his company. He gets a newspaper article about him, and the sympathy of misguided trademark-haters around the world.
> But she says in the article, it was a true story...
Whoop! whoops! whoops!
I was moderating this article, and I originally choose your comment as "insightful", but somehow this changed to "overrated" when I used my scroll wheel to move down the article. I didn't notice this until I got the confirmation. Sorry, if this hurt your karma! Don't worry, I'll get mine when someone metamoderates me as "unfair".
Hopefully, when I post this message, slashdot will remove the points I awarded to this article, and your comment will be back to normal.
> One of the things that makes a physical protest
> effective is that, well, it's physical. If you fill up
> downtown Washington with people, somebody's
> bound to notice (even politicians).
Even a physical protest can be ignored if there's no press. For example, families of the victims of the September 11 attack got together for a protest in D.C. earlier this year, but the march was virtually ignored because Ashcroft chose the exact same time to report on the alleged 'dirty bomb" suspect al Muhajir that they had arrested a month before.
Or more recently, it's been estimated that close to 100,000 people attended rallies around the country to protest the proposed Iraq Resolution. However, no one in the mainstream media except USA Today (IIRC) bothered to cover it.
Protests are generally only effective if they get the attention of everyone else via the mainstream press. The on-line protest of McDonalds might get some press once simply because of the novelty of it. But after that, it won't be very effective.
> Actually, I believe no modern watch claims to be
>"waterproof", it's always "water resistant to xx meters"
Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches are designated as "waterproof": From their website: "An Officially Certified Swiss Chronometer, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual is equipped with a waterproof case, a sapphire crystal and a self-winding movement." Sorry, their site is too annoying to navigate, so I can't give an actual link.
Urban legend used to say that this was because Rolex trademarked the phrase "waterproof", so everyone else had to use "water resistant." I'm not sure if this is the case (I've never seen them stick TM at the end of the phrase in their literature), but the reason could be that Rolex watches are made a little differently than a regular watch.
Rolex Oyster watches are cast all in one piece or slug, rather than assembled from multiple pieces. As a result, when the watch is put together, it is basically sealed. The result is rather heavy -- to give you an idea, take off your shoe, attach that to your wrist, and then walk around for a while -- but they're built to last.
I'll add my "you shoulda billed 'em" charge to the rest. However, if you didn't negotiate that beforehand, it may look a little sleazy to bill them afterwards. And in my experience, you always meets your business associates later in your career.
Yes, your former boss had no business asking for your free time to help them after they laid you off, but if you agreed to help them at no charge (hoping for some consideration from them), then you might be stuck. Sending them a bill now might just turn your goodwill into bad since that's the last impression she would have of you.
I had a similar situation happen to me once. I left a company after I had built some custom software for them to do some traffic analysis. The VP was angry I left, but everyone else really wanted help to keep updating this application. Initially they wanted to pay me as a contractor (after I left and had another job!) so they could update his application, but the VP shot it down. At the same time, I didn't want to leave my former co-workers in the lurch, so I did them a favor. I told them that I would consult with them (but not touch any code) if they paid for lunch. I got a few free sushi lunches, they got the help they needed, and the VP ended up paying for the bills without knowing what it was about.
So even if you didn't want to explicitly charge your former boss, surely there was some way to get compensated for your time. If you didn't negotiate it the first time, at least you learned a quick lesson. Then again, if she called you once for help and got it, you can be sure that she'll call you again, so you may get your chance after all.
> Read David Brock for enlightenment? The guy's an
> admitted liar!
> So, was he lying then and telling the truth now, or was
> he telling the truth then and lying now? I personally
> think the latter. Maybe he lied both then AND now!
Congratulations: you've shown you've read the GOP's talking points about how to dismiss Brock's book without disputing anything said in it. I haven't seen a single conservative pundit show anything in the book to be false. They just say, "Oh, he admits to being a 'conservative hitman' against the Democrats. Therefore pay no attention to him now."
I encourage you read to the book for your own enlightenment. And while you're at it, check out Joe Conason's The Hunting of the President . Then draw your own conclusions; don't just regurgitate with the GOP tells you think.
> The Democrats will likely not oppose this bill en
> masse, and if a few of them attempt such a tactic they
> will undoubtably be accused of "holding Democracy
> hostage".
Agreed. The Democrats that voted against the Iraq resolution were already accused of being soft on terrorism. As long as people accept what the Bush and GOP have been saying without question, the Democrats will continue to be powerless to respond.
> The bill would drop Senate language that would have
> established an independent commission to
> investigate why U.S. authorities failed to prevent the
> Sept. 11 attacks, congressional aides said.
So Bush got what he wanted after all. No investigation into the security failures of Sept 11. Sheesh, did they eliminate the Freedom of Information Act too?
Anybody else feel like the U.S.'s Democracy is morphing into a plutocracy?
> When did the word Liberal become an epithet
.
Newt Gingrich started the game back in 1994 when Bush Sr. lost the 1992 election. They put together a plan to make the world "Liberal" worse than "Communist" and basically wage the same war on the Democratic party that they waged on Communists before that. For more enlightenment, read David Brock's Blinded by the Right
It doesn't go both ways though. I have never met a Democrat or Liberal that responds to the other side with the same visceral reaction as a conservative when you say, "Liberal"
Conservatives have learned since 1992 that if you say something enough times people will take it as conventional wisdom. For example, despite the fact that the media in general has been giving G.W. Bush a free ride since Sept 11, 2001, they still claim there's a "Liberal bias" to the media.
> Remember, both Nixon and Clinton severely abused
> the IRS' power by auditing all their enemies.
Nixon maybe, Clinton no.
Remember, our country spent almost $70 million dollars and two independent councils with unlimited subpoena power to investigate Clinton, and the only thing they came up with was some fellatio. Bill and Hillary go down as the most heavily investigated couple in the history of the U.S., so unless you've got a real court conviction to back up your accusation (which would be an impeachable offense), then don't bother lumping him in with Nixon.
> William Safire is usually regarded as a conservative
> on the NY Times
Yeah, I'd say that President's Nixon's former speechwriter qualifiies as a conservative.
> For every person who downloaded a song instead
> of buying the album there are probably 3 or 4
> more who bought the album because they
> downloaded the song.
I agree. For me, here are some examples:
1. I downloaded a couple of songs by Moby on Napster a while ago. Soon after, I went out and bought the whole album "Play". I had heard of Moby for years, but I didn't think I liked his stuff, so I wouldn't have bought the album otherwise.
2. I downloaded a few songs by a band called "Apples In Stereo". I liked the songs so much, I bought the whole album.
3. I downloaded four songs by Oasis. Later I bought two of their albums. I never would have bought the albums if I hadn't downloaded the songs first.
Now, I did this with plain old MP3s, iTunes, and my iPod. This isn't a case where time-limited music files would work because I often bought the albums months after I downloaded the songs.
Admittedly, the artists and record companies that haven't benefited are those where I heard one song I liked, but the others were inconsistent and I didn't like those. I think that's the reason the labels hate this. They realize unrestricted music sharing helps their good artists, but hurts their one hit wonders, their novelty acts, and similar artists.
> Hey, I appreciate some honesty
I agree. If a company or person is going to do something disadvantageous to me, I'd rather them tell me the truth rather than avoid the issue. Or worse, tell me that whatever they're doing is to my advantage.
Yes, Mr. Bush, I am talking to you, and I am talking about the elimination of the so-called "death tax".
> You ever try to find a "Disposable Heroes of
> HipHoprisy" album in the store?
If you like them, try out Consolidated (if you're not already listening to them); I think they were kind of related band to the Disposable Heros. Something off their Friendly Fa$cism album is a good place to start. And their song "Music Has No Meaning" has particular relevance to this article. As another one of their songs went, "If music is just inspired by a desire to make money, how interesting can it really be?"
Ever since election night, Consolidated has become more and more relevant.
> Has Jake Barnes every met a linux user? Or a BSD
> user? Or a VMS user? Or hell, a BeOS or OS/2
> user?
Or a sports nut? Or a car nut? Or a gun nut? Everyone knows someone who is pretty passionate about something. However, being passionate about an operating system isn't as socially acceptable as painting yourself the team colors of some football team and screaming like a moron.
Personally, I think the "Mac nuts" are as nuts as all the other nuts. I like my Mac and I own shares in Apple, but why someone would get an Apple tattoo is something I don't understand.
> Can you prove that Apple's campaign is a success?
Not to be glib, but that's what I did.
Advertising can rarely be translated directly into sales, since there are so many factors involved in making a sale. A campaign can be a success if it brings more people into the store, even if they don't buy (that's a promotion success, but a sales failure). Thus, the direct goal of the advertisement is to get people to think about your product and act (hopefully buy, but not necessarily) upon it. From the example criteria I listed in my first message, I'd say Apple's campaign has been a success.
Note, you used the term "switch" even though you didn't buy a Mac. That meets criterion 1. If the ad prompted you at any time to go to Apple's web site and price out a new G4, then the campaign worked. (If you didn't do that, then I call into question your claim that the Mac would be $3,000 more)
To give you another example, the company I work for made Business 2.0's list of top 100 stupidest business decisions of 2001. Although most people wouldn't be happy about that, our promotions people responded with, "Great! There's no such thing as bad publicity!"
I'd say that your one lost sale hardly calls Apple's products into question. The buzz has been strong since Apple released Mac OS X about how there's finally a desktop Unix. Several respected Unix forums are now paying attention to Apple's products in a way that never would have happened with Mac OS 9: Slashdot's created its own Apple section, O'reilly has an entire series of books on Mac OS X, and former Linux users are gravitating to Apple's new offerings. For example, in a recent Byte article, the author talks about how he saw at a recent Linux conference, he saw "maybe 20 or 25 people running Mac OS X". Plus, in that article, the word "switch" was used three times in the context of someone moving from one computer platform to another. So the former is a sales/product success and the latter is an ad campaign success.
> Update: 10/14 21:12 GMT by P: Apparently,
> Microsoft has taken the page down, but Google
> has it.
She must have switched back
whoops:
> if Saturday Night Live or someone painfully
> mainstream would do a parody
That is, someone *else* painfully mainstream. Note you don't get points if the parody is done by someone hip, but relatively obscure. Thus, Jon Stewart can make a joke with the word "jingoism", so he doesn't count. Leno, Letterman, et al do count.
Thus, in terms of creating a "buzz", a successful marketing promoter is indistinguishable from a troll: it doesn't matter what people are saying, as long as they're talking about you.
I work in marketing too, and I think it is newsworthy because it shows that Apple's campaign is a success.
Since one can't generally can't make a correlation between an advertising campaign and increased sales (too much of a lag and too many factors), there are a few milestones for promotions that indicate success:
1. A coined term being adopted by the industry. In this case, "Switcher" is being used in all sorts of contexts, albeit in articles talking about Apple. But if someone in the computer industry uses the term "Switcher", most people in the know will think "Apple". I guarantee you someone in Intel's marketing department grins whenever an analyst talks soberly about "Moore's Law".
2. Grass roots movement/fan clubs: Exhibit A is Ellen Feiss. I doubt if anybody outside of Dell' marketing department builds fan sites for that annoying geek they're using
3. The competition is forced to respond to you. Pepsi constantly mentions Coke, but Coke never mentions Pepsi. But Pepsi's marketing department would love to see that happen. If anything, it's free advertising, because your product is being mentioned without you having to pay for it.
4. Finally, some sort of parody exists. I've seen a few on the web, but Apple would hit pay dirt if Saturday Night Live or someone painfully mainstream would do a parody. That would show that Apple's Switchers campaign has become a small zeitgeist, like the Mastercard "Priceless" ads.
The Microsoft ad was so bad because it was so easily dismissed. All the talking points could be dismissed just as easily as they are brought up. Make no mistake, someone in Apple's promotions department saw that pathetic Microsoft ad and grinned from ear to ear.
> I only saw the ghost in the shell after seeing the
> matrix, and the entire time I'm like, damn! I see where
> the matrix ripped off their ideas.
That happened to me, and I found myself saying the same thing. Between Ghost in the Shell and Dark City (both of which I liked better), I was left wondering if The Matrix had any creative ideas besides the "bullet time" visual effect.
The Matrix did have a redeeming factor for me with the hidden reference to The Prisoner, a show I recently got into.
> The last thing I want to here while watching Akira is
> the lastest hit by Smash Mouth or techno drum beats
> from the Chemical Brothers.
I agree that the original music was great, and I wouldn't want to see Americanized music added to Akira. A nit to pick, however: The Chemical Brothers do Big Beat (or generically Electronica), not Techno.
That does take me back to when I was in college. My roomate and I took the video sequence of the Clown battle from Akira and mixed in Meat Beat Manifesto's "Strap Down Part 2". Without even editing the video (just grab the sequences from when Kaneda puts the record on the jukebox until Tetsuo falls off the bike), the song matches almost perfectly. The vocal intro (starting at 30 seconds) even kind of sychs with Keneda's lips in the beginning.
Cool! Google has a few interesting articles on it like this, so I guess it's real. I may ask my optometrist about them. Sounds a little less scary than slices one's cornea.
> U iust hsd LASIK seigyry n doth ryes om
;-)
> Tjuessay. Sp fsr I hdve rxprriences mo oroblens
> ay all.
Last Thursday, huh? Figures. You misspelled just about everything in your post.
> They put some numbing drops in my eyes and then
> lowered this eyeball sized tubish thing over my
> eye. It basically sucked onto and grabbed hold
> of my eye, then a blade comes out of that to
> slice a thin layer of the cornea.
Dear God! I was thinking of having it done, but your description made me do two things:
1. Think of "Minority Report"
2. Delete the To-Do to talk to my optometrist about LASIK.