BlogHer Archives - Page 18 of 23

Gates and Seinfeld Selling What Exactly?

I’m still amused by Apple’s Mac vs. PC guy ads, especially the one where PC pokes his head up out of a pizza box and explains he wants to attract college students.

Microsoft apparently decided it was time to try it’s own version of funny ads. Microsoft has teamed up Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in a series of ads, that so far, only hint at anything Windows or Vista related. Gizmodo calls Gates and Seinfeld

the new Laural and Hardy of ambiguous advertising

The public hasn’t seen many of the minute and a half ads yet, but there’s a four and a half minute version that Karen at Unterekless Thoughts declares

New Gates/Seinfeld/Microsoft ad made me laugh so it must be good

You can see the long version at YouTube. In the long version, Bill and Jerry attempt to live with a normal (as in not filthy rich like them) family. They attempt a few normal things, like eating scalloped potatoes and playing ping pong before they get kicked out.

There are some funny lines, which is all there is to evaluate the ads on at this point—nothing technical is getting mentioned. Abbey Klaassen at Advertising Age agreed in Gates, Seinfeld Funnier Second Time Around. Klaassen pointed out,

What the latest spot brings – which seemed unlikely with the first spot, dubbed “The Conquistador,” that broke last week – is the potential for the ad to go viral. An extended version of the new commercial, which is called “New Family” and broke last night on CBS during “Big Brother,” is already being passed around on the web.

Even though I’m an avowed Mac person, I’m contributing to that “going viral” effect by talking about the ads here. This either proves A) it’s going viral, or B) a $300 million contract between Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the ad agency, and Microsoft is paying off for Microsoft.

Alice Hill at RealTechNews commented

It’s a much, much better ad that the first one. And it makes Bill G almost lovable, if such a thing could be possible. But with Bill and Jerry retired, what does it really say about what they left behind?

Mary Jo Foley, in Keep the faith: More Windows-specific consumer ads coming soon quoted a Microsoft spokesperson who said that the ads will quickly move to being more about Windows, including desktop, laptop and mobile.

I’ve always been amused by the PC guy vs. Mac guy ads. It has done nothing to change my buying behavior. I thought the full four and a half minute ad on YouTube was amusing, too. I have a feeling that it won’t change my buying behavior either. What is your reaction? Does it affect what you buy?

Cross posted at BlogHer

Share some inspiration with young girls, plus new toys for Windows users

Thanks to Dr. Kiki Wants Your Help at .51 for leading me to The Bird’s Brain.

The Bird’s Brain is the site of Dr. Kirsten Sanford, a neurophysiologist. She has A Small Request for inspirational and motivational ideas that she can tell girls in grades 6–8. She explains her ideas in this video Small Request.

Read the full post at BlogHer. The article also mentions Google Chrome, Ubiquity from Mozilla, and Foxit Reader. Not full tech review of those Windows tools, but a bit of info.

Be who you are. Be identifiable. Be somebody.

Look at these results from a Google blog search for Foxit Reader.

admin

Who the hell are all these people named admin or with email addresses like noreply@blogger.com? Everytime I do a blog search (which I do about twice a week) I find these unidentifiable bylines on blogs. Why can’t you just set up an account name on your blog so people can tell who you are? Are you trying to keep it a secret? Don’t you want anyone to know who writes your blog? Sheesh, people.

I think maybe all these admin and noreply people are women. Because you sure can find a lot of blogs in a blog search that are written by Matt or by Bob or by Jay or by Gavin. Yet, you hardly ever see a woman’s name in a byline. Is Google biased against women bloggers? Are women bloggers hoping to be anonymous? I happen to know that millions of women are writing blogs. Surely some of them are writing about the things I’m searching out.

So, if it’s women who are posting as admin or noreply, cut it out. Just stop it. Go into your blog control panels and give yourself a name that identifies who you are!

It matters a lot to me if all these unidentifiable bloggers turn out to be actual women. That’s because I spend a lot of time, energy and caffeine writing for a website which has the expressed commitment and purpose of helping people find women bloggers. We want to find you and promote you. If I were to base my thinking on the results of a Google blog search, I would think there were only 3 women bloggers in the entire world.

Get over it. Be who you are. Be identifiable. Be somebody.

Useful Links

Dealing with Speculative Work at WebWorkerDaily has some good advice for the designer who’s asked to submit work on spec. This might make a good discussion springboard with students who will be eager to land clients as they head out on their own. And it might keep one of them from getting burned. I wrote something several years ago, taking the perspective of the person looking to hire a designer. You might find that useful to discuss with students, also. What to Know Before You Hire a Web Designer is the article, on my personal site.

Want to Play? is my latest BlogHer post. It’s about girl gamers and the community waiting for girls who play video games.

Years ago, when our family “game machine” was a clunky little gadget from Radio Shack and the best games were of the Pac Man generation, I watched my son become addicted to games. He still is, and he’s passed the torch to the next generation, his 12 year-old daughter.

One of the points I touch on in the BlogHer article is the skills that learners develop playing video games.

Blogger sued for $20 million

Leslie Richard runs a small organic clothing store called The Oko Box. She was contacted by a TV production company called Vision Media Television. They told her they wanted to make a TV documentary that included her business.

After some conversations and emails, Vision Media Television told her they would need $25,000 from her upfront to include her in the documentary. Sound fishy? Leslie thought so. She did some investigating and concluded that Vision Media Televsion was not exactly what they presented themselves to be. She wrote the story on her Oko Box Blog in Scam Taking Advantage of Green Businesses in February of this year. This post describes what they told her and prints some of the email she received from them.

Read my full story at BlogHer today.

McCain and Obama on Technology

John McCain admits he is a not a techno-geek and barely knows how to use the Internet. Barak Obama is seen with fingers flying on his BlackBerry when he travels and has raised millions of dollars using the Internet. The technology gap between the two men has raised a considerable amount of discussion of late. How important is what the candidates say about technology? How important is the role of technology in the plans, platforms, proposals and agendas that the two campaign about? How important is it that the President is technologically savvy?

Read my complete comparison of the technology positions of the two presumed candidates at BlogHer.

The value of slow

We live in a technological age. When we say, “I’m working,” we mean that we are sitting still in front of a computer. When we see the daylight, it is for brief moments on the way to and from the place where we sit still in front of a computer. We IM, Tweet, email, text, and call people all day long for instant communication with instant access and instant decisions. Our favorite action verb is google, our favorite social invitation is follow me on Twitter.

Read the article on BlogHer: The value of slow.