October 10, 2008

Microsoft makes mildly amusing marketing effort

Microsoft seems to be allotting a surprising amount of revenue to providing Downtime with material.

After showering Jerry Seinfeld with money for a couple of bewilderingly awful adverts, it has released a fresh advert for Windows 7 which delivers at least comparable measures of weirdness.

Unlike the Seinfeld ads, though, Microsoft's latest effort verges on funny. It even features a punchline of sorts, along with a boy band singing about software.





Despite these relative successes, the advert still has a whiff of desperation about it. If Microsoft's efforts to maintain dominance in the changing software market are consistent with its marketing, we can expect some strange software.  

BBC blogger demonstrates muscle of internet media

Anyone who thinks print offers a future in publishing should ponder this: Britain's biggest banks blame BBC blogger, business editor Robert Peston, for wiping £17bn of the value off their shares, thus contributing to chancellor Alistair Darling having to dip his hand into taxpayers' pockets for £500bn to tide the banks over.

Downtime cannot recall a time when the dead tree press moved such mountains. Downtime reckons Peston deserves a raise for signalling the triumph of NuMedia.

Steve Jobs' online profile suffers a fresh attack

Just three weeks ago Downtime was forced to report that Vernon Kaye was not dead, and it seems the internet's capacity to bereave and bewilder has not abated.

Poor old Steve Jobs, having outlived his Bloomberg obituary, has now suffered a massive internet heart attack. The fictional heart attack lopped a real 5% off Apple's share price within half an hour.

CNN, which runs ireport.com where the "news" was published, apologised for the mistake. Apple, for its part, hurriedly denied it.

As for Steve Jobs, he has held his tongue. Perhaps all the denying of his own death has given him a sore throat.

Google offers Mail Goggles to users with beer goggles

Following its entry into the enterprise market Google is now offering parental services. Google has introduced a system that tests whether e‑mail users are drunk before they send e-mails.

The Mail Goggles system asks users simple mathematical questions to provide e¬‑mailing's equivalent of the breathalyser. This system only works in the wee small hours, automatically activating late at night on weekends, and is designed to stop people sending e-mails that they will regret the next day.

Downtime is considering its own system that can identify whether journalists are drunk when they write Downtimes.

Profiteers bank on government intervention

Banks are having a tough time of it. Not only can they not offer crippling mortgages to people with little or no chance of repaying their debt, but now they are also having to stop offering credit to identity thieves.

A parliamentary group on identity fraud reported that identity thieves are targeting customers' online accounts as bank credit dries up.    

Downtime has every confidence government will see the fraudsters through these tricky times. As for the identity thieves; well, they are clearly in the wrong business. 

October 7, 2008

Palin's internet profile borders on the ridiculous

In these times of economic hardship, Downtime knows there is a responsibility for comic IT columns to resist bipartisanship.

However, it is becoming difficult to maintain this stance as the American election 2008 - or Election 2.0 - hoists Sarah Palin into the limelight.

YouTube has been a feature of this election from the get-go, with Obama girl boosting Obama's credentials, but the McCain campaign must be wishing the internet could be turned off.

A litany of choice Palin clips are circulating cyberspace. The strangest is probably a video of Palin attending a service at her Pentecostal church with the preacher calling for witches and Palin's enemies to be defeated.

But perhaps most worrying for the McCain team is a clip of Palin explaining her unique Alaskan foreign policy qualifications. "As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border."

ITV admits viewers won the battle, but plots to win war

ITV revealed last week that it had invested in the vanguard of television advertising.

In the heady future, ITV will be able to embed advertising into television shows, getting round the problem of pesky viewers channel-hopping to avoid being bombarded with advertising.

Simon Fell, head of future technology at ITV, told The Times, "We are trialling it online, where it is a manageable area and allows us to get feedback from both advertisers and viewers. It gives us another tool in the arsenal, and it is subtle."

ITV must make money somehow, and it would be churlish to be too critical, but it would seem unwise to talk about the new technology as adding to the "arsenal".

Viewers might feel understandably aggrieved when Fell, or perhaps ITV's head of present technology, eventually fires the new advertising bombs into their homes. They might decide to cut off his supply lines.

Men are from Mars, women are better, research proves

The 21st century will see employees who use the right (or female) side of their brain most in demand.

This, according to Microsoft research, is because right-brainers are "lateral, collaborative, flexible and creative". And all at the same time.

Downtime research has found that Microsoft's right-brain office of the future will see an influx of rock musicians, the absent-minded, and people who become restless during long verbal explanations.

Unfortunately, these right-brain high flyers will be handicapped 
by their inability to find their way to work. 

Follow the link to discover which way your brain leans.

Microsoft speech glitch raises awkward questions

As usual, the Microsoft presentation hit a glitch. But at IP08, it was not Microsoft's fault. You can blame BT.

The throngs were waiting for a speech from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to be piped in from Southbank to the IP08 viewing room in Earl's Court. But the ISDN link was not up. Not in the morning. Not at lunch.

So three questions for BT.

As this was an IP event, why ISDN? Second, why was the contingency plan to record Ballmer's speech and courier the tape across town? Third, what does this say about BT's confidence in its 21st Century Network? Answers on a postage stamp, please.

October 2, 2008

Office Wars - IT v Sales (and more)

Who will win the Office Wars? IT? Sales? Frankly, we don't care - just so long as we get to join in the fun!

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