The ad wasn't intended to do anything more than link Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft. I think it succeeded. We'll see where it goes next. - Chris Baskind
Perhaps it's just so darn clever that hardly anybody has realised just how clever it is... - Jonathan Beckett
Its way to early to judge the campaign, we have no idea what direction they will take with the future ads. I think the first ad was interesting, crap on its own but as part of a larger campaign it may be alright - Arthur Guy
It's not about Apple, it's not even about us (even though we think the world revolves around Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) It's about connecting with consumers again. And as pointed out already here in the comments - this video is just the start. My thoughts Microsoft - a Consumer Brand? http://tinyurl.com/5kap2w - Dave Isbitski
I like Jerry Seinfeld. The jokes weren't clear. the sound on some of Bill Gates' lines was muffeld. I like Jerry. - Steve Garfield via twhirl
So clever nobody gets it is good art. Its TERRIBLE marketing. If, in fact, it is that clever. - Brian Norwood
I wouldn't even call them ads, they are more like Microsoft branded entertainment. It has nothing to do with a product, more just "hey that Bill Gates isn't such a mean guy, he's funny, and look it's Jerry Seinfeld!" - Chris Stevenson
Did someone in that crew think that the old Taster's Choice ads were especially clever - Laurie Sefton via twhirl
For years Microsoft never even had a marketing campaign (at least not one noteworthy enough to reach the average user), and now, they have adopted a shoot from the hip strategy that is sure to keep them as clueless as ever. - Jody C
agree ... a youtube amateur contest would have produced better ones, for almost nothing - Gregory Lent
Marketing doesn't always have to be about shoving products and taglines down people's throats. No commercial will ever convince people that Vista is awesome and at least they realize that. These commercials appear to be aimed at MSFT's real problem which is their brand image, and I think this one did a pretty good job at reframing people's image of the company. - Devlin Dunsmore via twhirl
i thought it was great. the first of many. and +1 Devlin - Morgan
It was a funny commercial but in no way is going to help Vista sales IMHO - David Ward
Marketing is about positioning your brand in the mind of the consumer. I thought they were dreadful, but then marketers always hate each others ads ;-) - Sally Church
i agree david - but i don't think the goal is to help Vista sales. - Morgan
I had a group of 12-16 year old Boy Scouts in my home for that, and not a single one of them could figure out what that was an ad for, neither could the adults, non-techies, that were in the room. (and neither could I, the techie) It wasn't until I read it on blogs later that I realized it was a Microsoft ad. - Jesse Stay
The ad is neat. But I think they need more than neat. I think they've overestimated the esteem of their brand and underestimated the damage of those Mac ads. - timedalkat
It was pretty subtle. They're trying to say "we get it, we know what you want, and we know we haven't done it yet" but it's a little on the wink wink nudge nudge side. Then again, if they just came out and said "we're going to stop making lousy operating systems" nobody would believe them, so indirect and implicit is probably the best they can do. I don't envy Microsoft marketing and the position they are in. - Jason Wehmhoener
Seinfeld's show was about nothing. But you had to watch a lot of it to really appreciate it. If Redmond can create that sort of viewing behavior, they have a shot at conveying a message. It's an expensive way to go, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. - Jay Tannenbaum
Jason, what are they trying to say they get? Shoes? - Jesse Stay via twhirl
Of course all of this presupposes that the people who matter even watch commercials anymore. I certainly don't. I've got better things to do with my time... - AlexScoble(Robert'sBro)
And this spots looks like anything but a commercial. - Chris Baskind
I thought it was slow, boring, confusing, "insider", and denigrating to both of these talented people (Jerry and Bill) - Roxanne Darling via twhirl
The interesting thing for me were the Hispanic influences in the commercial from the family wondering who they were to churros at the beginning and ending - Tomas via Alert Thingy
I didn't love the ad, but I think this is a long term campaign to put a human face onto Microsoft, something they desperately need. They don't need to sell more vista with this one ad, they need to change everyone's perspective on MS as a company. If they can do that, they'll sell more everything. - felix
I rather liked the ad, actually. It's refreshing to see Microsoft not being so uptight. - Evan Sims
i think CEOs (or former CEOs) make lousy actors - esp. in *ads* for *their* company. bad move. - MikeAmundsen
Did somebody get a talking points memo about this? I keep seeing comments about "putting a human face" on MS. Whatever. - Patrick Beard via twhirl
Sorry I should have been more clear. To me it said that they know their operating systems aren't "easy as cake". Meh, it's an ad. Whatever. - Jason Wehmhoener
Robert, given your insider knowledge of MS culture, what do you think they need to do? - Sprague D
It sounds like Seinfeld wrote it. Funny, Jerry always had a Mac on his desk. - Phil Boiarski
@Phil, Yes, but did he ever once use it? Or try to eat it? - Wade Dorrell
The video and audio are out of sync. So unusual for MS to get it half right ;-) - gfurry
My prediction - this one will make a lot more sense once the other Seinfeld/Gates commercials are aired. - Mike Boudreaux
I don't get the new MS ad. I usually get ads when other people don't. I'm still wondering what it all means.http://is.gd/2esR - JungleG
I don't think these will ever really make sense or are supposed to. It's all about "lifestyle", I think. Just make microsoft a little groovy. Question is: is Seinfeld still in touch with the masses? At least I'll say this: his nonchalance seems as fresh as ever. Will it "cool" dorky Bill? I have my doubts. - Alex von Halem via twhirl
good ad. very good ad. the right direction for microsoft is good products though. marketing is not everything. despite what PR people might like to think - Noah David Simon
Wish $300 million was invested in something other than traditional advertising. Something with a clear feedback loop and closer to core CRM - Amanda Mooney
$10 mil reported to be the Jerry talent fee and $300 mil in media weight. The creative is going to have to get much better and quickly. They're burning money with this first spot. Watch it here - http://bit.ly/2sHEdn - Dave Martin
My Google Reader usage has actually gone down directly related with my FriendFeed usage - JungleG
actually there's a part of me that thinks its going to crap because of ff - Allen Stern
The number of folks subscribed to my google reader shared items continues to climb consistently. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
I share and read less from GR, but I read much more content originated from GR share via FF links. - Jody C
Don't get it, Allen. I'm with Hutch - I think the value has gone up because of FriendFeed. People don't really subscribe to my shared items, but I can quickly share what I find interesting with the FF community while simultaneously knocking my feed items out. - Shawn Farner
I use reader more than ever. I even disconnected it from FF to reduce noise. People who read my shared feed are not on FF for the most part. If I want to share something on FF, I visit the site itself and use the bookmarklet - Geoff Longman
I agree with Geoff -- the FF posting from the bookmarklet (with picture and comment options) is much higher value and timely than a Google Reader share. - Brian Sullivan
Agree with Hutch and Shawn, more people are reading and commenting on my shared items and I'm enjoying reading a greater variety than before. It does get tedious if too many people share the same item though. - Sally Church
No Allen, that's why we have RSSmeme and Readburner - Shey
I'm sorry Shey - is that the Readburner that pimps the same set of blogs every day? (techcrunch, xkcd, readwriteweb) ? - Allen Stern
Can you tell the same thing for Twitter? Do you think the value of Twitter has gone up because of FriendFeed? - Kerem Ozkan
Although sharing stuff is somewhat akward, I prefer much more Netvibes than GR. Also the FF bookmarklet is quite cool for sharing. Otherwise just use delicious with automatic sharing. - Hayk Hakobyan
@Allen Stern (allenstern): I think sharing on FF is finished. At least for my friends, as far as it goes. We all use Google Reader, we avoid the echo chamber, and regardless of what aggregator it gets poured into, it ends up on FF anyway. FF's a cacophany that I occasionally surf to see what certain people, largely NOT my friends, are doing. FF gives me too much noise and no way to filter it, by and large, while GR gives me, well, just my friends. This is a real problem if you're a FriendFeed One True Wayer, but for the rest of us? We just use what works. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver
Alexander - have you tried the Friends lists as a way to manage only those users you want to see? - Hutch Carpenter
it's funny - no one actually asked me what I meant by my statement! - Allen Stern
+1 Hutch. I was sharing pre-FF, but I share more now. Of all the ways to share things, GReader shares are the easiest for me to use because I'm always in Google Reader - Duncan Riley
I perform my Google Reader sharing in harmony with FriendFeed, which is one of the reasons that I (usually) share no more than three items per hour. - Ontario Emperor
I just checked... and happy to report that our code is 100% pimp free at readburner - Thomas Connors
@Hutch Carpenter (bhc3): I have, but given the inheritance of friends-of-friends, I STILL get a hook into the cacophany. At root, FriendFeed is a mechanism for finding things other people have already seen. GR is a mechanism for discovering things others haven't seen YET. Which is why I read most stuff via RSS from blogs/etc on GR, and it feeds my FF. FF is a truly crappy discovery mechanism in a whole pile of ways, the inability to filter via keywords / tags, the very, very short page-length that doesn't unify on referred URLs, no threading, etc. UseNet was better ... and that's saying something. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver
Alexander - you can turn of FOF inside each Friends list. That's what I've done. - Hutch Carpenter
Ok - let me clarify my comment. 1. Thomas, as I've said from the beginning readburner is about pimping - I wish it wasn't that way - with the talent you have onboard it's hard for me to believe you cant fix it. 2. as for my initial comment, i am tired of bloggers sharing every single item on their blogs - first, if the blog has 4-5 writers, that's an instant 5 shares on ff and rb, etc. Second, it's just pollution. In FF I can see the same story from X blog about 25 times in the span of 3-4 minutes. And my comment is not targeted just to FF but to Google reader and the people and sites that feed off it. - Allen Stern
@Allen Stern (allenstern): Which, to be fair, wouldn't be that big a deal if FF unified on referred URLs so they only got one entry and Comments, etc, descended therefrom. The duplication's a killer. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver
ReadBurner pimps what the people share. It's our job to evangelize the technology, and then more content will come. Do you think that Techcrunch even cares that it's pimped on ReadBurner? Doubt it. We get nothing from it, we want to see quality content, and right now people associate quality with a big name. We are going to demolish that notion. - drew olanoff
I can't help but wonder if this is some sort of backlash against the inability to monetize one's Reader sharing...? - abacab
As Alexander says, the big issue with GR etc. on FF is the duplication. I've had apost in the works for about 6 weeks on what we share and how based on our intentions and the potential audience. Do we share things differently based on where we know the share will be seen? Do we/should we hold back if we have already seen a number of others share the same story or do we share anyway in order to boost that item up the ranks on sites like ReadBurner? It's an interesting dilemma. - Colin Walker via fftogo
Drew - people associate quality content with big names? I seriously doubt that. - Allen Stern
Colin - that's an interesting analytical path you're going down. Good stuff. - Hutch Carpenter
just as i was reading this, and went over to twitter. I saw the fail whale :) .. guess twitter is in love with it! - Nishant
Congrats to the Twitter team for making the product much more scalable! - JungleG
I see the FailWhale a few times a week, but refreshing the page makes her disapear. If with this 'max clients' rule, they achieve more stability, i'm ok with it. - Alex Barredo
As usual, Chris gets the big picture. - Chris Baskind
Chris is a tech superstar that I listen to deeply. He is excited by Google's moves and lays out the poor execution on the Mozilla side of the fence. - Robert Scoble
What I missed in the Chrome comic was a mention of browser add-ons like Firefox's. Surfing the web without Adblock Plus is hard to imagine. - Ole Begemann
or without the delicious add-ons... or the evernote add-on... but at least bookmarklets are (likely?) to still work. - Justin Long
The comic was aimed squarely at devs. There was little mention of what would make end users choose Chrome over IE. - Paul Grav
Best read so far, been waiting for a commentary like this... - Kevin Cearns
Gee, Ole... why wouldn't Google want you running AdBlock Plus? Can't imagine. ;) (Now, I agree, add-ons are cool, but as a publisher, I'm not going to weep over that one...) Anyway, I wouldn't count Firefox out. Obviously, what Google addresses is the performance/reliability side and building around apps. Both FF and Chrome are built around standards, both closely married to JavaScript for what they do next. I think this could be a great rivalry, frankly. - Peter Kirn via twhirl
They talk explicitly about plugins on pages 29-32 of the comic so you should be able to have your AdBlock. I seriously doubt Google cares that much about AdBlockers -- which makes up an extremely small percent of the overall market, and which is probably made up of people who don't click ads anyway. - Chris Messina
Chris: I suspect by plugins they mean Flash etc. and not Firefox-style extensions. But I hope I'm wrong. - Ole Begemann
Will they, wont they. Time will tell. Who do you want to hate today? - Steve Blamey
Interesting article. More choice = better for the users. But I think that you are over-hyping the death of Firefox. As far I can tell. Firefox 3.0 is much better than Firefox 2.0 and Firefox 3.1 will be better than Firefox 3.0. Multi-process, V8 and native Gears support are definitely a step forward but firefox is part of an ecosystem so I would not count them out (A lot of people said that Safari meant the death of firefox and firefox is doing much better today then back them). I look forward to revisiting this post in 18 months and see how the mozilla team/community proved you wrong! - Edwin Khodabakchian
Hmm, well, I didn't claim to foretell the death of Firefox at all. In fact, Firefox will likely continue to gain marketshare and attention (as the web is still expanding). One of my points is that Mozilla missed the opportunity to be the foundation of Chrome -- and will now have to play catch up -- instead of set the agenda for what's next. - Chris Messina
Do you think that was a technical decision or a control decision. From the last couple of interviews I have seen of John Lilly, I think that he has a really clear vision around performance, usability and ecosystem. Performance is coming in 3.1. Usability is driven by some of the concept Labs has been pushing out and ecosystem come from the fact that there are 100s of extensions to firefox and a really vibrant community around firefox. That is a very unique blend. Chrome has made some good progress around performance but there is not much innovation around usability and extensibility. Google has proven with Android acitivities and cross application data sharing that they are capable of innovating...but it will take before those things make it to Chrome so while firefox might have to play catch up in part of the architecture, Chrome will have to play catchup in others. - Edwin Khodabakchian
I am using chrome right now, and I really miss my shareaholic addon as well as my stumbleupon bar. hopefully the developers get crackin for plugins for this browser. - James Campbell
I'm hoping to see some good progress from Mozilla. I do worry a bit about them fish-tailing and not being able to say no to developers (whose needs are often very different from regular folks). We shall see.
@James Campbell:There will be a need for web hooks, no doubt... and places to insert additions or modifications to your browser experience -- I don't really doubt that (some standardization there would be nice too). - Chris Messina
The only up-side to any of this is there's now a hole in the voice over talent pool. Well, aside from the remaining Big Three ... - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver
Unfortunately some truck struck my wife and our car this afternoon. In a matter of minutes I was able to see the incident on Google Maps. I’m keeping the image as a memento.
Thank God my wife’s okay. - JungleG via Bookmarklet
We condense complex ideas into engaging experiences that help people understand, work, and collaborate effectively in a variety of media — from websites to wireless devices, to installed and web-based applications, to interactive exhibits and print. - JungleG
I'm totally there -- I believe I've created social platforms just because I'm such an introvert myself - JungleG
it's worth testing, but it wouldn't surprise me if the biggest extroverts online, are actually the biggest introverts in real life. - Vincent van Wylick
Interesting post. I'm looking forward to really digging into Friendfeed's new features to start clustering my friends into communities. I'm already vaguely aware of distinct groups within the people I follow, for instance, people who post mainly tech/web 2.0 news; people who post funny/interesting trivia, etc. Whether or not this will help me or others to reply to more posts, I don't know... - David Young
On Twitter, I definitely am rarely listening. I use Twitter search for keywords, or if I want to browse a specific individual, I'll do that, but I'm not watching the stream. As for FriendFeed's new feature, I do have some concern that people will more closely watch their best friends and the second-tier (so to speak) will see likes and comments dissipate. But that's for another post. - Louis Gray
For me, twitter (and FF to an extent) has turned from 'listening' to 'monitoring'. I catch some when I can, but try and keep up with the close ones. Also, my ratio often is off because I have spammers follow me on twitter and I don't (know how to) remove them so that offs my ratio. - Rob Williams
I definitely feel like I am heard more on FriendFeed than in Facebook and get more conversations going. With Twitter it's usually a 1-2 punch (query-reply) and then the conversation is dead. - JungleG
I've stopped listening on Twitter all together. FF is a much more interesting place to listen. - Thomas Hawk
I listen to Twitter but within the context of FriendFeed. So my filters here highly affect what I hear from Twitter. - Rob Diana
I'm not sure anybody is following me but I listen and learn more on FF. And I seem to get more of a response here. (Though beta may have renedered me invisible?) - Abby Martin
people not actually following.. only few really do... and if they really do, they do not always catch-all updates... and if they read just when the update shown, only few will respond... still we need more tools for effective measurement... - Pico Seno
This was a hard post to write because I recognize there's a problem, but I'm still not even quite sure FriendFeed or Facebook attack the problem fully - they seem to be the best at it, though. I'm not quite sure what the answer is, but Twitter is the furthest from it, it seems. - Jesse Stay
i listen, but i don't think anyone else listens to me no matter the site; Twitter, Plurk, FriendFeed, Seesmic...Jesse, I can't believe you left off Plurk. Maybe you just haven't experienced it, but I've seen really interesting conversations among cliques on that site. - faboo mama
Those that find you interesting will listen. Those that might want to catch something you say, might catch it. Those who just follow to follow probably won't hear what you have to say. In the end, does it matter? Can I read every book in the world? No. How do I decide which to read, which I might read, and which I will probably never read? - Tim Hoeck
faboo, I just can't figure out how to organize Plurk - paying attention as much as I can to the conversation is important to me, and Plurk is just too unorganized for me. - Jesse Stay
Here's an interesting concept - what if each of these services required you to listen to each conversation, similar to the way Google Reader does? Perhaps it would force people to be more careful about the people they follow and what they listen to. Might make for an interesting network if someone were to implement this. - Jesse Stay
communities can be ghettos, fishbowl magnifiers, a group of the already converted, i like staying wide with my interests ... no groups - Gregory Lent
why are so many folks presuming there is only one possible way these tools should be used? - Chuq Von Rospach
i don't know what you mean by 'organizing' plurk. i only follow certain people, i don't accept every friend request and people who don't plurk often or don't participate in my threads, i unfollow their plurks. if i'm also following them on twitter or they abuse ping.fm i unfollow. my timeline is clean. - faboo mama
i think the exposed emails is completely asinine. talk about just straight abuse of privacy. anyone that does that gets a friendly reminder of how to mass email w/out disclosing everyone's email. - Morgan
"I am often asked if the Olympic village - the vast restaurant and housing conglomeration that hosts the world's top athletes for the duration of the Games - is the sex-fest it is cracked up to be. My answer is always the same: too right it is. I played my first Games in Barcelona in 1992 and got laid more often in those two and a half weeks than in the rest of my life up to that point. That is to say twice, which may not sound a lot, but for a 21-year-old undergraduate with crooked teeth, it was a minor miracle." - Jess Lee via Bookmarklet
wow....wow, the picture is so funny after reading the article...the two legs and the one finger - Pokai
And to be honest, I thought that the strategy was going to be to allow users to see online those events they didn't deem "interesting" to air. But no matter how much I searched on the site, video coverage was almost always the same content they aired. Sucks BIG TIME! - JungleG
NBC ran a story on the Lopez Family many times throughout Week 1. The Lopez's are a family of USA Taekwondo olympians. From what I can tell, they never aired any of their matches - or any TKD matches for that matter. On the site, I found a few clips - one is 4 hours long. No sign of the Lopez's or any of the Chinese athletes. Weird. - Renee Pie
Pete: FF is good for tech stuff, very little on science and medicine so I still use G Reader a lot - Sally Church
74 -- any more than 100 must be useless IMHO - JungleG
Too many - I end up hitting "mark all as read" on whole swathes of them from time to time, and am reverting slowly back to the likes of Newsvine, Blogs.com and Wired for a prepared skim of the news... - Jonathan Beckett
@sally, RSS is RSS, regardless of where it comes from. I aggregate in PVT rooms and share then to my main feed if need be. FF is good for every thing, - Peter Dawson
Peter- I find that i have stayed with teh habit of checking G-reader more than FF. I know I could use FF more, but for me, it is more of an instant information tool. Just a personal use choice, I guess. - Erin McMahon via twhirl
Pete: I hadn't thought of that, good idea - Sally Church
62. I just started. It's fun feeding picture blogs into a picture folder. Some Russian/East-European blogs are so prolific, I put them in a high-traffic-picture folder (or they'll swamp everyone else out). Good place for vi.sualize.us stuff (haven't tried Flickr or Picasa). - Mitchell Tsai
