Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’
24 November, 2007
Picked this RDM-post up at Slashdot. It does a wonderful job explaining why Zune will fail. Again. But also why MS will continue to have overall problems:
All the company can do is continue to throw money at music on one front while it battles Google in search on another, Linux servers in another, OpenOffice in another, Blu-Ray in another, and Nintendo in console gaming. Meanwhile, its flagship Windows Vista product is in flames while Apple eats into the profitable end of consumer desktops and Linux increasingly eats into its installed base in low cost desktop sales.
Well worth a read. And while you’re at it, read this one about MS Office profits. Sick.
Tags:Advertising, Apple, christmas, ipod, Microsoft, office, profits, slashdot, zune
Posted in Digital Media | 3 Comments »
25 October, 2007
Go Mark! It’s your birthday! I don’t know if it really is but at a 15 billion dollars in valuation i wouldn’t be surprised 
This Makes FB the fifth most valuable Internet company on the planet. Geez. One could hope that this wasn’t a financial investment on Microsoft’s behalf hahaha. My guess is that they got a sweet ad distribution deal included, or else I don’t know what to say… other than Murdochs 580 MUSD purchase of MySpace is looking awfully good and Yahoo/MS/Google’s non-purchase at a 2-3 bilion valuation is looking pretty stupid hahaha. Can people get fired for neglecting buying companies earlier?
With 300 million visists each month, and 44 pageviews each visit, that adds up to roughly 160 billion pageviews each year. I know, I know, pageviews aren’t everything in this AJAX-Web2.0-Cost Per Influence-Cost Per Action world, but both MS and FB are talking about the deal on a eCPM basis so why shouldn’t I?
Anyhow, Social Networks are notoriously bad at monetizing traffic due to two reasons:
- They’re utilities, more resembling software than media channels, making if difficult to find efficient surfaces for ads and click-thru are often lousier than even the lousiest banner exchange program
- They have no content on which to use as a targeting trigger, leaving only the social graph, broad user specified interest tags and demographics to base targeting on
These two factors create insane difficulties when trying to make accurate assesments on what kind of “mode” the user is in, and thus what type of advertisement that can be used for maximum eCPM. However, it might be possible that FB (or MS) has some ultra-super-stealth method of increasing eCPM for Social Networks, because at 1USD/eCPM, (and that excludes commission for the ad serving partner, which is Microsoft in this case) this would give them an annual revenue of a meager 160 MUSD, which I heavily doubt they’re getting, otherwise why take a 250 MUSD investment…
Since Mark Z (who has to stop looking like Justin Timberlake when he was in nSync) has invited top agencies to participate in giving suggestions of how he could go about to do something of his inventory, my guess is that they have no clue. Time will tell. I’m on the edge of my seat, mostly since we’re working on a way to save them from themselves.
Tags:deal, facebook, hype, investment, Microsoft, Technology, Web 2.0
Posted in Digital Media, Marketing + Advertising | 2 Comments »
5 July, 2007
“Open as Google Spreadsheet”; interesting (and clever) cross-app leverage, that probably will drive alot of first-time users:
Tags:Google, Microsoft, Web 2.0
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
29 June, 2007
…one hire at a time:
http://no2google.wordpress.com/
Interesting reading if you’re interested in the inside scoop of what it’s like working for MS or Google.
Tags:Google, Microsoft
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
9 January, 2007
This just in: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/tags/ Apparantly some guy up at MS has used an Open source tool (!) to create this rather fascinating tagcloud based upon 90 memos from Microsoft dating from the eighties and forth. I found it quite fun to drag the slider and notice how the emphasis shifted as the time went by.
One can clearly see that in the eighties there was lots of talk about “computing” and “computers” (and Apple), where as the late nineties – early twothousands were all about “Internet” (duh). The last couple of years seems to be more about “technology”, “community”, “linux/unix/open source” and (you guessed it) “Google”.
To conclude: from hardware to software to everyware. I like it.
Tags:meme, Microsoft, Web 2.0
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
17 December, 2005
Well… UPS showed up with an RMA-box four days late, but I had managed to switch it in the store where I bought it (after *alot* of complaining hahaha) so I was all set. Lesson learned is to not have more interaction with MS than necessary. Maybe they should ploughback all that free cash in customer services? Anyhow, the 360 is awesome. Graphics are good, not surprising considering resolution is three times up from previous consoles. The games are… alright I guess. Xbox Live is still crap in comparison to good ol’ usermanaged servers. Call of Duty 2 only 8 players… come on! Ping is lousy so I still can’t figure out why they go for the ad-hoc networks, if they insist on charging for the online-experience. Is hardware expensive these days?
Is the 360 the hardcore next gen console or is (as Kasuragi claims) in fact Xbox 1.5? Too early to tell I suppose. I bought the SNES, Dreamcast, PS2 and Xbox at launch and so far only the SNES comes close to being a classic out of the box. Comparing COD2 and PGR3 to Halo2 and Rallisport Challenge 2, the 360 still has alot to prove and as for onlinegaming, a decent PC is still way better… guess I’ll be first in line for a PS3 aswell.
Tags:Gaming, Microsoft, UPS
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
5 December, 2005
So I’ve waited for 24 hours to get an e-mail from Microsoft with all the information needed to send my Xbox360. Didn’t get it. Not surprised. Called their helpdesk. 45 minutes waiting time. Not surprised. Was told there was something wrong with my e-mail and that’s why I haven’t got it, which is strange because I’ve used the same provider for 5 years and never had a problem Long story short, they promised me an RMA-box tomorrow and that I would get a replacement 360 before this weekend. Stay tuned.
Tags:delay, Gaming, Microsoft, UPS
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
4 December, 2005
So I went and got me one of them shiny new Xbox360s the other day. Long story short: it didn’t work.
These are the consoles I own that work:
Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Super Nintendo
Nintendo Gameboy
Nintendo Gameboy Advance
Sega Dreamcast
Sony Playstation 2
Sony Playstation Portable
These are the consoles I own that doesn’t work properly:
Microsoft Xbox
Microsoft Xbox360
It doesn’t take a statistical genius to see what I’m getting at. My guess is that either:
a. Bill Gates wants to make a point on how much market power actually means or
b. The Xbox team are on the take from Google and Yahoo or
c. Microsoft is trying to take out it’s revenge on me since for switching to Mac or
d. Bill has read the dice man and pushed his luck or
e. The Xboxes are a trojan horse to push people back to using PCs as a gaming platform by establishing that consoles aren’t that reliable after all
I’m thinking e. For real.
Tags:consoles, Gaming, Microsoft
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
3 October, 2005
After experimenting on a small scale with offering WLAN-access, Google has now engaged in the beauty contest on which company may get the chance to provide San Francisco with citywide wireless internet access, as reported by SF Gate and Business 2.0. This would partially explain Googles purchase of dark fiber and their announcement to sell stock. Sounds to me like SF will be the first real test of locationbased rich content/advertising, which would be a logical addition to AdWords.
I have a few concerns about this. First of all: why ask for permission at all? Secondly, I’m not sure that Google is making the right move by integrating forwards in the calue chain, which may upset the established ecosystem (with content providers and telcos living in symbiosis). Sure, Wireless is the most sensible beachead for an attack on the ISPs but I’m not sure that the telcos will let Google get away with this, no matter how much hype, goodwill etc. Google has going for them right now. Maybe they have come to terms with the fact that no single company has ever been able to out innovate the market, no matter how many Mensa-members they have working round the clock ? Maybe Google has become paranoid and want total control over the user experience, thus creating a sustainable competitive advantage? Maybe they envision a comeback of the ISP-portal (which actually would make a lot of sense with all the input-limitations of set top-boxes, mobile phones, smart phones etc)? It’ll be interesting for sure to see what all those PhDs have been cooking up… will history repeat and send another big, paranoid company down the marketing hall of shame?
Tags:Google, Microsoft, Technology, Wireless
Posted in Marketing + Advertising | Leave a Comment »
