Allow me to admit something shocking right off the bat: I have not watched these ads. I am blogging in ignorance , because it seems pretty clear what’s going on here. As was the case with the Seinfeld ads, it seems that once again, Microsoft is barking too hard, and up the wrong tree at that. Your browser is bad, it’s been bad for years. Sure, IE8 is way better than its predecessors, but that’s as close to polishing poop and calling it gold as anyone has ever come. But this isn’t the way to make people try it.
Another blast-from-the-past celebrity? Internet disorders? Even the most forgiving of watchers (a group that does not include me) must recognize this as a desperate and ham-fisted attempt at going viral. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Microsoft, you need to be honest and direct. Show your logo first, admit there are multiple browsers, then say why IE8 is good for people. Show the product and show it working. Seinfeld, S.H.Y.N.E.S.S., and “Welcome to the Social” are pretentious and ineffective. “I’m a PC” was trying too hard, but it was on the right track. But try to remember, Microsoft: you’re not selling people, you’re selling software. Leave the highfalutin nonsense to Apple and perfume commercials.
If I’m wrong please let me know, I don’t want to give Microsoft any more of my eyeball time than I already have.
That’s the problem with Microsoft: they think they can make their products better by praising and advertising them instead of actually improving them. They did it with Vista, and now they’re doing it with IE8.
“That’s the problem with Microsoft: they think they can make their products better by praising and advertising them instead of actually improving them.”
No, you’re thinking of Apple
No, I’m pretty certain he said ‘Microsoft’. In fact, it seems rather right-on.
I see you have never seen an Apple ad in the last decade.
Microsoft will not push to make IE a better browser. They will continue to ignore standards so they can push their own version of the Internet with Silverlight. It’s an embarrasment of a web browser and the sooner it becomes extinct, like Microsoft, will be for the better.
The technological illiterate will eventually learn to move away from Microsoft.
When you say ‘ignore standards’, did you really mean ‘embrace, extend and extinguish?’
Typical of microsoft. I’ve heard recent complaints about that outlook express program being broken and how microsoft needs to fix that instead of focusing on rivaling twitter.
They just thought if they forced every pc on the market to come pre-installed they didn’t need a good product.
Thats all that needs to be said. Amen. Maybe what they should have done is made it so NO 3rd party applications could be installed on Windows machines and you could only visit Microsoft approved websites, i.e. no Google, no Twitter, no anything that threatens to steal their monopoly market share.
Sounds like iPhone and most other cell phone carrier stores and video game consoles. :P Can’t wait to see the home PC go the way of game consoles, eh? Imagine! You’re NOT allowed to write your own stuff or buy anything that isn’t blessed by the Microsoft Store. Yummy. XP (yes, it’s a disgusted smiley.. the OS version is probably not a coincidence)
Yeah everything is so going that way. I mean everything. To take on good example though, I’ll praise the PS3. At least you can put in your own 2.5″ harddrive, and use a huge range of peripherals – unlike Mr. 360 where everything you buy for it has to be an outrageously priced, trashy, official Microsoft thing. 120gb HDD for AU$230? No thanks. Not to mention the plethora of other examples
Oh please Dan, Sony is the KING of propitiatory crap.
BetaMax, Minidisk, ATRAC, Memory Stick, UMD, etc etc etc
And don’t forget the HDD in the PS2 was propitiatory as well.
You have some rather clear anti-MS bias.
Amen. Or maybe not allow any 3rd party applications to be installed on Windows machines? They’d love that situation, as they currently seem to enjoy churning out turds they call products and not having to worry because people will still buy them.
Yet Apple does not even ALLOW 3rd party software that competes with theirs to be installed on the iPhone and are praised for it.
Tell me, how would the common Joe even download a browser unless they already have one installed so they can browse to the download page?
Don’t bother trying to talk about ftps or a friend lending disks or anything like that, I said the common Joe, not the common Geek.
And would it really be fair to force MS to bundle their COMPETITION with Windows like Firefox, Chrome, or Opera?
Seriously…..
Most people use Safari and Quicktime on MACOSX, and Apple isn’t called out on it, but MS is.
Yes IE = shItE but… that’s a good advert.
“desperate and ham-fisted attempt at going viral” – link to video here, 7 comments. I think it was successfull attempt.
It’s successful in the same way that notoriety is the same as popularity.
Pointless commercial.
Good to know that some marketing departments still have budget overrun, but the fiscal year isn’t even close to ending yet, which really confuses me with this ad.
~not at all like the bing commercials, because they really get their point across
/sarcasm
go ram another APPLE up your ass, hater.
Is it just me or is that ad aimed at morons who think that computers and the internet are amazing because there are pictures of cats wearing hats on it? And know nothing else?
Dean Cain will always be the man thanks to Lois & Clark. I won’t speak ill of him. But he should have higher standards.
Really? You’re going to criticize Microsoft for this when it’s all Apple has been doing for years? None of their commercials ever have anything to do with their products; they just make fun of how often PC’s crash and get viruses, then make false claims about how Macs never do.
They’re to the point at least, even if they dramatize it and basically lie. Microsoft’s ads are just way too indirect.
Laptop Hunter?
Straight and the to point.
How the HELL are Apple ads to the point? Half of the Mac vs PC ads just bully PC and barely even menton the Mac.
When I read the headline, I instantly thought:
“Wir machen das mit den Fähnchen!”
Unfortunately only germans will understand it – there’s no sense in translating it, because it’s a quote from a funny german TV commercial that one can only understand if he knows the commercial.
*WARNING* Do NOT use Internet Explorer 8 – this web browser has unacceptable security vulnerabilities.
Wasn’t Safari rated as worse?
IE8 STILL gives me that stupid “default browser error” every time I start it up, and the only fix i’ve found makes Firefox not work. Coincidence? I think not.
Funny, I just tell it no and to not ask me again and it never asks me again….
If Microsoft actually put out good products, I wouldn’t be biased.
And that is proof that you are biased.
I will not lie, they have had their share of bad products, but they have put out a lot of good products as well.