Paraguayan President Turns Down Meeting WIth Palin

Delcious post over at the Washington Note. Click it here.

And quite frankly, who can blame him?

Not to diminish the importance of the people of Paraguay, but there is something pretty telling about President Fernando Lugo turning down access to a person who might well get behind that desk in the Oval.

"I can see Paraguay from my house!"

OH. MY. GOD. Palin is All Dingbat!

This is what would be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office if McCain wins.



Oh my God! It's like listening to Sally Field in Sybil. Oh My God! In her next interview I expect her to talk about the buttonhook.

Look at Katie Couric trying not to burst out laughing. What? Or maybe she's trying not to cry.

Caribou Sybil.

Viral Vid: Dixie Chicks Parody

Inside and Outside the Box: An Interview With Box.net Community Manager Sean Lindo

Well, it's Interview Thursday here at Oldest Living. this week, we're hearing from Sean Lindo, Community Manager for Box.net.

Q1: For the benefit of people who may not have heard of you, can you give me an elevator pitch of Box.net? What you do and the need you meet?

Box.net is a service for people to store, access, and share files online and, more importantly, collaborate on them with family, friends, and colleagues. Whether those files are productivity documents, like Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations or digital photos, audio and video, Box.net provides individual and enterprise customers with a simple and secure service for storing and sharing the files that matter to them.

Q2: Lots of companies begin with a story. A catalyzing moment that made the founders know they had a real need to meet. What is Box.net’s story?

While he was a student at USC, Aaron Levie, Box.net’s CEO and co-founder, wanted to figure out a way he could access and share any file he had, wherever he was. He wanted to do it in a way that was easier than how most people accessed and shared files then - and, as a matter of fact, how many people still do today.

As Aaron says, Box.net wasn’t established to be a leader in online file storage and collaboration. He and his co-founders just wanted to solve a problem they experienced themselves. 2 million users later, it turns out a lot of people shared their sentiments.

Q3: There are several companies offering file sharing services right now. What’s unique about your offering? Are there new services we should be aware of?

Box.net puts an emphasis on collaboration. It isn’t enough that we provide a simple way to store files online. For us, the magic is in how people get to use, share and collaborate with their files. We make it really easy for Box customers let others, whether they’re a Box user or not, to view and edit files, contribute and track changes in a centralized place.

The cool thing is that a lot of people are noticing what we bring to the table. As you know, Dell recently announced a partnership with us, providing users of the new Inspiron Mini 9 netbook with free online storage and collaboration services from Box.net. The fact that one of the most respected leaders in the industry picked Box speaks volumes about what we offer.

We are also working on a Box.net application for the iPhone. I’m an iPhone user myself, so I’m especially excited about being able to access and share files on my beloved phone. We’ve already gotten rave reviews on our iPhone browser-based application. Users can expect an easier, more robust experience when the native app comes out. And in general, we update Box.net on a weekly basis to optimize performance and security and address customer requests.

The key takeaway in all of this is that Box.net provides customers with a user-centric experience - not a closed, application-centric one. We want to provide an open experience that lets customers use files with the applications, operating systems and devices they prefer, all in a way that’s fun, simple, secure and reliable.

Q4: Your site touts how OpenBox is integrated with some service platforms like Picnik. How does that work and what does that mean for the user?

We are especially proud of what the OpenBox platform brings to customers. Box was the first online storage service to provide an open API for third party developers to write applications that work seamlessly with files stored in a Box.net account.

For example, if you use Picnik to edit digital photos, Zoho to edit documents or Facebook to post files on your profile page, you can access files stored on Box.net right inside these applications. When you create or make edits to files using these apps, you can store them on Box.net and share them easily. Customers can do this with tons of other services and applications from iPaper, Zazzle, eFax, Wordpress and even Autodesk.

Q5: Ultimately, this is a blog about marketing, and your background is in marketing. What have you found are the biggest challenges of promoting an online service in this constantly changing marketing environment?

The web has given consumers an almost infinite amount of ways to learn about anything. In researching and evaluating a product, people put a premium on learning about something from a credible and trustworthy source. The challenge is knowing what those sources are and how to get your word out on them at the right time and in the right way, whether it’s an established site like TechCrunch and Engadget, or the blog that has a few dozen dedicated, but really vocal readers. While it is a changing environment, it poses the same marketing challenges that have been around forever. The web just multiplies them many times over. At the same time, you have so many more options and things you can try out, but it’s definitely a challenge.

Q6: Companies are ultimately about people. What made you choose to work at Box.net? What’s YOUR story?

It had long been a dream of mine to work for an exciting company in Silicon Valley. I worked for some great companies in Chicago, but I’m a tech fanatic. I read tons of books and watched a lot of documentaries on Apple, Steve Jobs, Microsoft and Google, which made me excited about working in a place where history is made and world-changing products are born. In Box.net, I came across a company that was young, playing in an exciting space and growing at a fast pace. It was just the kind of company I imagined joining once I was in California.

Just as importantly, I get to work with people who are fun, smart, hard-working and passionate about their work. It’s easy to get out of bed in the morning because I sincerely look forward to working with the people I get to work with at Box.

Q7: What is your role at Box.net? What does a Community Manager do?

I’m basically Box.net's main point of contact with the blogosphere. My job is to stay up-to-date on what’s being said about Box.net on tech news sites, journals, podcasts, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and so forth. We want to make sure we get our story out to the online community and effectively address the needs and concerns of current and potential users.

Q8: What excites you about working at Box.net?

I’m excited that Box.net gets to play a big role in this trend towards true cloud computing. I know a lot of people love to hate that term. But the move towards using files and applications that are web-based is undeniable. The market is looking for a simple, rich and secure experience in accessing information and content wherever, however and on any device, whether it‘s a PC on your desk or the phone in your pocket. I think Box.net is ideally positioned to deliver on a lot of what people want in this space.

Q9: Anything else you want to tell us?

If your readers haven‘t already, I would encourage them to visit www.Box.net to learn more, sign up and stay tuned! Oh, and pick up a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 - or two!

The Office: Baited Breath for the Premiere!

White Paper Thursdays: The New Marketing Landscape

A nice deck outlining the changes in our marketing environment is available below. Worth a peruse or a download. It is authored by Dan Pankraz, Senior Planner at Clemenger BBDO, Sydney.

The New Marketing Landscape By Dan Pankraz

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: trends new)

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

White Paper Thursdays: Combating Gripe Sites

A good white paper about managing brand reputation -- particularly "gripe sites" (you know the drill <<>>SUCKS.com) is available here. Made available by Fairwinds Consulting.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

MTV Ad Network Takes a New Tack

Well, MTV, which already has a vertical network (natch) has reformatted that network into "tribes" built around their lead media properties. The idea is to get more revenue from exiting advertisers on their mainstay properties by selling those audiences across the web. It's a potent approach in that it will help grow their own revenue while giving sites access to advertisers that would frankly never ever ever get around to buying their ad space.

What I like about the approach is that it is demand rather than supply driven -- meaning that they can meet the needs of advertisers better through this approach. And in so doing, help suppliers. It's sort of a...dare I say it...marketing approach to selling marketing space. Is that an interesting innovation.

While the also ran networks struggle to get some traction -- any traction -- with certian advertisers, MTV can build on its existing relationships and snare a larger share of their total ad spend.

What are you saying, that this is just packaging...another name for channels? Why, YES, I agree with you. Packaging good.

Thanks for reading, and don;t forget to write.

WSJ: First They Go Color, Now It's Social Media!

ARS Technica is reporting that WSJ is introducing social media content and functionality to its much anticipated too long in coming redesign. This screen shows you what they're planning:



My friends, I'm guessing we will be seeing the first three digit CPM for social media. Maybe that's hyperbole, but I don't think so. The folks at the Journal are smart enough to know that to truly monetize these pages they are going to need to really integrate messages into the discussion.

Let's just hope News Corp doesn't bring the bling from MySpace pages on over. Cuz I would hate to see this sort of thing in the grand dame of financial news:



Holla Holla WSJ!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Wanda Sykes: Political Phenomenon!

Replay: Official Florida Presidential Ballot

Florida Voting Machine | Funny Jokes at JibJab

What Are The Leading Online Health Sites?

From the Center for Media Research, which BTW, you should subscribe to. The ranking of leading health websites online.

Yahoo's Feeling Veeeery Purple!

Start Wearing Purple, people!

At least what Yahoo's saying with their new marketing campaign, which is based around a minisite of the same name. It appears to be an effort to get more people to identify (or identify again) with the Yahoo brand, which has had its downs of late. Thing is, there are still like 450 million people worldwide using Yahoo every month, so they are hardly in death throes.

But the deliberately quirky nature of this campaign -- and associating the color purple with being a maverick or innovator -- seem a deliberate attempt to create that sort of "Think different" persona in support of the portal.

Purple has been a favorite color for yahoo branding for a long time, and you may remember that there were reports that Yahoo was testing a new purple logo earlier this year. Perhaps this plainly odd campaign is the precursor to that major initiative.

I don't hate it, though I think they'd have done better to commission a contest on XLNT Ads to get consumers to do the purple defining. It'd feel richer and more authentic than this. I mean, the "kick the habit leap"?

But anyway, thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Reportedly Magical Android G1 Phone Turns Out To Actually Be...Just a Pretty Cool Phone

I am tired of breathlessness on new phone announcements. C'mon people, they're just phones. They can be cool, they can be eminently useful, but ultimately, they are phones. Well, perhaps that is not exactly correct. They are actually a cross between a phone and a PC. But you get the point.

We've lived through a couple of months of iPhone 3G mania, and now here's Google's answer to it.

So just to clarify a couple of things, this is an android and is magically remarkable:



And this is the Android phone (photo from this ReadWriteWeb post.) which is a pretty cool phone.



(Note, the icons don't actually float out of the phone. THAT would be pretty magical. But it doesn't happen, so we are back to pretty cool.)

RWW points to the following feature set:

Features Demoed In The Promo Video:

Touchscreen - You can swipe across the screen, use a long press to access more features, drag-and-drop
Music - one-click ordering from Amazon confirmed
Music player is built in - one long press lets you access more features, like song options
Gtalk IM included
Address book can take you right into Google Maps
Google Maps: Directions/Traffic View/Street View; can do panning in Street View thanks to the touch screen
In "Compass Mode" the scene moves as you do
In the web browser, there are onscreen controls to zoom in
You can open multiple web pages in Google's browser
There's a search button on keyboard
A long press lets you share a link (URL) from within the web browser
For apps, there's the Android Market, complete with user ratings and OTA downloads
Pacman!



It's a TMobile phone, so the 3-G footprint is less developed than ATT's for iPhone.

Hey, I am not rapping the phone. But I do want to gently point out that it is just a cool phone. Just like iPhone 3G was a cool phone. Choose your flava, people, because from where I sit they seem pretty similar! Though I do like the bona fide qwerty keyboard. Bona fide meaning actual keys. I don't like the iPhone one.

And at $179, it's a bit cheaper with that 2 year contract. Preorders have begun!

Oh wait, you better read this first, from the TMobile site:

"If your total data usage in any billing cycle is more than 1GB, your data throughput for the remainder of that cycle may be reduced to 50 kbps or less. Your data session, plan, or service may be suspended, terminated, or restricted for significant roaming or if you use your service in a way that interferes with our network or ability to provide quality service to other users."

So you can watch A LITTLE BIT of YouTube, but don't expect to actually...entertain yourself every day... ;-)

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Buy My Sh*tpile, Henry Paulson

Ya gotta love the web. Gotta. As we watch Washington figure out how to clean up the sh*tpiles on Wall Street, a web funnyparker has created a site that invites you to post the sh*tpiles in your life that you would like the government to buy. After all, you're paying your share, why not GET your share?

See the requests here. Warning: No stars in the s word on this site.

And yes, I am sorry for posting profanity, though I did strategically place some stars to hopefully avoid the wrath the Google downgrading.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Best Buy Purchases Napster...Remember Napster?

So, big box giant buys Napster. Interesting. Napster WAS huge but now, according to ReadWriteWeb, boasts just 700,000 paid subs. A paid sub entitled users to all you can eat music for as long as you were a subscriber. But no ownership.

So 700,000 payers. Nothing to sneeze at, but as I do the math that's $172.85 per subscriber. Not what you'd call a fire sale price.

Recall that millions once used Napster when it was a free way to steal music by the bucketful. But then a little thing called the law shut them down. Napster was resurrected as a paid subscriber service, with a predictably smaller footprint. Because, as I say all too often, if you think the key to business success is giving consumers what they want online, you'll have a problem. because what they WANT is everything, free. Now.

But the current sub base is not actually why BB bought it. They see huge potential for the mobile side of Napster. Given how many phones BB sells, perhaps its a good bet.

Still seems like a lot of green to me.

Says Read Write Web:

It's All About Mobile

Best Buy must think that it can push Napster to be a profitable part of its company, but over the last few years, the company never turned a profit. Best Buy, of course, does have a considerable amount of marketing power both in its ubiquitous big-box stores, as well as through TV and print advertising. Judging from the wording of the press release, it seems Best Buy is mostly interested in Napster's mobile business. In the mobile business, Apple doesn't have the dominant market position it has in the regular MP3 player market, so by positioning Napster there, Best Buy might be able to carve out a lucrative niche for the service.

Bundles

Chances are that Best Buy will start bundling Napster with anything from toaster ovens to overpriced Monster cables in the coming months. The holiday season, after all, is right around the corner and if Best Buy still wants to get some value out of the acquisition this year, they will have to act fast.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Viral Vid: Spaghetti Cat

Blogging: Mainstream or Niche?

ReadWriteWeb has an interesting analysis of the blogging market overview data recently issued by Technorati. Basically, they have a somewhat more subdued perspective about the state of blogging -- specifically with Technorati's assertion that blogging has become mainstream. Rather, they look at the info and see a decidedly niche set of participants.

SlotMusic: Will CDs Sell Better If They Are Small And Rectangular?

The music biz and SanDisk are joining forces to launch "slotMusic," SD memory cards loaded with music. Kinda sorta like a...CD, only small and rectangular. Sony, Universal, EMI and Warner are hoping this new form of prerecorded music media will breathe life into their business.

As you can imagine, big box retail is definitely behind this. WalMart and Best Buy have signed on to sell slotMusic. And why not? Any sale they can drive BACK to retail from iTunes/Amazon/Rhapsody et al helps their bottom lines.

Here's the slotMusic sell copy from the site:

What are the benefits for consumers and music lovers?

slotMusic cards enable consumers to instantly and easily enjoy music from their favorite artists without being dependent on a PC or internet connection. Users simply insert the slotMusic card into their microSD-enabled mobile phone or MP3 player to hear the music – without passwords, downloading or digital-rights-management interfering with their personal use.

slotMusic cards will be bundled with a tiny USB sleeve ensuring seamless interoperability with all computers – Windows, Linux and Mac. The upshot is that slotMusic will enjoy an unparalleled, pre-existing install base at launch: hundreds of millions of multimedia-phones, virtually any computer with a USB connector and a growing number of in-car sound systems will be able to play slotMusic cards.

The MP3-based music tracks will be played back at up to 320 kilobytes per second (kbps), offering a high quality music experience.

What does slotMusic mean to Artists?

Musicians will find slotMusic cards offer a compelling new way to express themselves to their fans. With 1GB (gigabyte) of capacity, slotMusic cards can hold songs, as well as liner notes, album art, videos, and other creative content that an artist may choose. Consumers can also add their own content to a slotMusic card, creating a personal plug-and-play media library.
Stay tuned for more exciting news.

The artists and albums are TBA. I would imagine they'll sell OK, at least in the beginning. But I cannot help thinking that recorded media has kinda sorta run its course. While one hopes that the music biz can have a win after a lot of years of unpleasantness, it's hard for me to believe that this is it. But I have been wrong before...

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Tech Crunch 50: Want a Great Vacation? GoPlanit!

One of the companies I saw at Tech Crunch 50 that I have been remiss in discussing is GoPlanit, a travel site that actually helps you plan your stay in a locale based upon your time, money, traveler intensity, and interests. The site is really interesting. You input a destination (there are 10 for the beta, and a much broader set is planned for the launch), dates, and the system plans your days from meals to activities. You can adjust the planning parameters based upon your budget and preferences for an intensity level in your days.

To test the platform I asked it to plan a trip to San Francisco in late September, for a week, with a moderate budget. I figured I’d be able to put my tourist hat on for “my city” and determine how well it plans fun an interesting days. Results were really quite interesting, and by interesting I am not finding a nice way to say “odd.” The choices combined tourist essentials plus an eclectic set of restaurants and down time activities that was refreshing.

Another great feature is the ability to pre-populate the system with your plans, and have it fill in the gaps. So, for example, if you were headed to Vegas and already had purchased tickets to Zumanity, you could input the date and time of the show and then have Goplanit fill in the rest of your day.

Goplanit offers more than just travel recommendations. Here is how the company describes it features:

GoPlanit helps save you time/money/aggravation every step of the way - before, during, and after your trip!
"One-Click Travel Planning" - Create a personalized trip calendar with our virtual travel agent in a matter of seconds! We'll do the legwork for you and find things to do and see while you're on your trip
"Cut Through the Noise" - Use our filtering engines to personalize your search results and return more relevant items based on your preferences
"Sharing is Caring" - Invite friends to go with you on your trips. Keep track of responses, comments, and more!
"Bring It With You" - Access your trip itinerary from your mobile device. Find nearby things to do and see
"Travel Microblogging" - Don't wait until you get home to write about your trip, update your trip journal with your musings right there and then while you're on your trip! Just send a text message to "70589" and start your message with the word "blog" and your travel blog will be automatically updated for all to see! Ex. blog 5 stars: I love this place!

The service is in beta, so not all the kinks are worked out. But I see a lot of promise in this offering. I would imagine that services like paid inclusion will be a part of their model, in addition to advertising. They could also charge commission for subsequent sales that they drive online. In short, there are a lot of directions they could go to make good money with this great idea.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.

Section 8 of the President's Proposed I Bank Bail Out Agreement

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

So, no oversight from anyone but an appointee of a lame duck President. But I mean...what do we expect for $700B?

Unbelievable. Well, it would have been 8 years ago.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Fire Sale on Stumble Upon?

Last year eBay acquired Stumble Upon, the social bookmarking site for $75MM. After a year of user and page view declines, it's apparently on the block. Tech Crunch reports that Deutche bank has been enlisted to find a buyer.

The traffic declines are really remarkable. Anyone have insight on the whys of these declines?

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

What Ad Sizes Should You Buy For Better Click???

Some very interesting info came out of the Sherpa last week that I thought I would share. They did a study of the relative click rates of different online ad sizes. Here are the results:



So, to spoon feed it, but those 728s and big squares. I have to say that in our (C:SF) experience, the response rate discrepancy between big squares and other sizes is even larger.

Naturally this is because such ads are typically embedded in the middle of content versus around it. Often at the most interesting places in that content to boot.

Whatever the reason, you have your marching guidance if you care about clicks for that buy you are currently working on! Check out the link for more info.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Apple: Always a Step Ahead

So, just when MSFT launches its new compaign, which I reviewed yesterday, Mac is out there doing amazing new ads online. Amazing. Check this out -- a video of their NYT ad unit last week. Remarkable:



I like the new camapign for MSFT, but it seems pretty clear to me that Mac ain't gonna roll over. It's easier, after all to reinforce a positioning than to create a new one.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Spore: DRM Backfires as Hackers Make Spore The Most Pirated Game Ever!

Forbes has an interesting article about the piracy problem facing EA over Spore, their new virtual worlds title that generated unprecedented levels of hype. Part of their efforts to curb piracy in this title came through equipping the disks with DRM protections. As is always the case, however, hackers quickly overcame these safeguards, and appeared to have punished EA for using DRM by ensuring that thousands of illegal installs take place around the world.

Here's an excerpt form the article:

As of Thursday afternoon, "Spore" had been illegally downloaded on file-sharing networks using BitTorrent peer-to-peer transfer 171,402 times since Sept. 1, according to Big Champagne, a peer-to-peer research firm. That's hardly a record: a popular game often hits those kinds of six-figure piracy numbers, says Big Champagne Chief Executive Eric Garland.

But not usually so quickly. In just the 24-hour period between Wednesday and Thursday, illegal downloaders snagged more than 35,000 copies, and, as of Thursday evening, that rate of downloads was still accelerating. "The numbers are extraordinary," Garland says. "This is a very high level of torrent activity even for an immensely popular game title."

The EA protections, which tried to limit users to three installs, appear to have backfired, and hackers across the web are pointing to their hacks as a triumph for doing the right thing.

Electronic Arts calls those criticisms unfair. "EA has not changed our basic DRM copy protection system," says corporate communications manager Mariam Sughayer. "We simply changed the copy protection method from using the physical media, which requires authentication every time you play the game by requiring a disc in the drive, to one which uses a one-time online authentication."

Electronic Arts compares its DRM solution to systems in place on services like iTunes that similarly limits the number of computers that can play a particular song. Sughayer also points out that less than 25% of EA users attempt to install the company's games on more than one computer, and less than 1% attempt to install it on more than three.

Piracy is becoming a massive problem in the game biz -- the cost of software is one factor, of course, but increasing software costs are a consequence of the constantly higher consumer demands for better action and graphical realism.

The difficulty, of course, is that DRM doesn't stop hackers...ever.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

On Sugar: Yay! Not A New Ad Network!

Yes, friends, a major web property has NOT launched an ad network! Perhaps owing to the fact that the number of ad networks has crossed the 400 mark, the Sugar blog network (PopSugar, BuzzSugar, etc. etc.) has instead decided to launch a free blogging platform called On Sugar. Tech Crunch broke the story.

The feature list is impressive, particularly if your subject matter is pop culture/fashion/style celebs. From their site:

Key Platform Features:

- 10 different post types: (text, gallery, spread, poll, quiz, quote, link, chat, video, & audio)
- Free access to a hundreds of thousands of Getty Images®
Fun drag and drop "spread maker". Create your look with thousands of fashion images from hundreds of online retailers through ShopStyle, e.g. ShopBop, J. Crew, Net-a-Porter, and others.
- Build your audience of followers with automatic notification of new posts
- Follow your favorite sites and view an aggregated feed of your followed sites
- Multiple sites per account
- Multiple authors per site
- Easy import from Blogger, Wordpress, & Typepad
- Full domain support
- Free


Key Site Features:

- Drafts/Timed Publishing
- Search
- Archives
- Pages (e.g. About Me, Galleries, Videos, etc)
- Widgets for highlighting content from your site or around the web (e.g. Popular Posts, Latest Comments, Latest Tweets, etc)
- Related posts from your site or, if you choose, from sites you follow
- Completely customizable themes


Technologies:

- Drupal - open source content management system
- Akamai - Entire platform uses the Akamai content delivery network
- memcached - Extensive use of memcached
- Smarty - Template engine
- sIFR - (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) is a technology that allows you to replace text elements on screen with Flash equivalents.
- TinyMCE - Rich Text Editor
- LLMP - Linux, lighttpd, MySQL, PHP
- Fully documented API

The free platform, which enables the bloggers to join Glam or other female targeted ad networks, enables Sugar to monetize these sites through deployment of the ShopStyle Widget. ShopStyle links fashion, culture and celebrity to a buying engine that puts replicating looks and participating in trends at the user's fingertips.

Now, Sugar may yet intro an ad network, but at least for now they seem to be abstaining for a while. It makes sense at least until there is some shakeout in the network ecosystem.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

I'm a PC Too! New Microsoft Campaign Gets On The Dart Board

The Apple I'm a Mac I'm a PC campaign has been running for years, and it is one powerful ad campaign. Not only have they reinforced the hip factor on Mac, something he brand always had, it also succeeded in positioning the competition -- Microsoft --as a fat, bumbling idiot.

I think the campaign has been so successful that it has affected media coverage -- portraying the entire MSFT company -- whatever product, except PERHAPS XBox -- as a doddering and inept entry living by its supposed hegemony.

So I was pleasantly surprised by the new I'm a PC campaign, which directly addresses the stereotype by showing the profound range of people who use the operating system that powers, after all, 96% or so of machines worldwide.

Have a look:





It is perhaps odd for number one to respond to number 2 in advertising, but I think they were able to do it without DIRECTLY addressing Apple, at least by name.

I like it. It's a little sledgehammer to the head "we are repositioning ourselves," but whatever. It needed to be done.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.