My take on the Mojave videos
Like many other writers, I see Mojave as much more of ad campaign than a genuine scientific experiment. As my colleague Matt Jansen wrote yesterday, it’s no secret that there was a major flaw in the way that the participants didn’t actually get a hands-on experience (which makes it ironic that one of them stressed the importance of using a system to be able to appreciate it). But I was interested to visit the new Mojave Experiment website and see some of the footage for myself.
It’s worth noting that when I visited the site it refused to play in Firefox for me, but was fine in Internet Explorer. There may be a good reason for that, I could be missing a plug-in, and any incompatibility is nothing to do with Vista – but it sure didn’t create a good first impression.
My main observation was that some of the clips seemed a little too polished. I’m not in any way suggesting they were set-up or scripted: chances are, with a decent number of participants, it was simple enough to simply pick out the quotes Microsoft found most useful to ‘prove’ its point. I’m assuming nobody is naiive enough to think the clips were chosen at random – Microsoft was hardly going to show extensive clips of people underwhelmed by the presentation (assuming there were some people who reacted that way).
But the reaction shots when panel members find out Mojave is really Vista seem a little… odd. Many respond to the ‘shock’ not with a gasp, but rather an immediate, well-spoken, coherent comment which perfectly matches Microsoft’s arguments about not relying on second-hand information or preconceptions. One even refers to “Windows Vista” rather than the plain “Vista” which you’d expect people to use in conversation.
Again, I’m sure all the clips reflect the genuine beliefs of the participants, but from my own broadcasting experience I wouldn’t be shocked to discover some of the reaction shots were refilmed to allow the speakers to make their points more clearly.
However, it’s certainly a creative stunt and one that didn’t take too much work to set up, having apparently been dreamed up by Microsoft staff just a few weeks ago. And it was likely pretty cost-effective, particularly as it coincides with a separate campaign with an outside ad agency that’s got a reported $300 million budget.
While the site itself is interesting, it’s questionable how effective it will be. After all, someone who’s willing to take the time to visit the site and watch the various videos is likely somewhat clued-up on computers: clued-up enough, at least, to have also read some of the media coverage pointing out the flaws in the experiment.
What will really be interesting will be if Microsoft creates broadcast commercials from the footage. By picking out just 30 second of footage it’s likely that the firm could produce a very powerful – if hardly objective – promotion for Vista.
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August 1st, 2008
One of my workmates made an interesting comment regarding Microsoft – he said it’s like they’re not really a software company any more. I think that’s a very astute observation, and that in fact Microsoft could now be characterised as a marketing company, where it wouldn’t matter if they were selling energy drinks or exercise devices or anything else – just as long as they had a monopoly and could lock their partners and customers in.
That puts “Mojave” in it’s proper context, being, as it is, somewhat symptomatic of Microsoft’s changing character. Of course, trying to make Vista look good – or even average – is a Herculean task. In Australia, we would say that Microsoft is “flogging a dead horse” and “p***ing into the breeze”.
August 20th, 2008
This guy before me wrote Microsoft is “not really a software company any more”, “Microsoft could now be characterised as a marketing company”.
Well, is that so? Really? I would like to know, what OS is this guy using? I also would like to know what OS the people that agree with such claims are using. I know the writer of this blog is using it. Even those that don’t use it now have a new found respect for this other OS and company.
The other OS I am talking about is one that is made by Apple.
Correct me if I am mistaken, but wouldn’t you people have to agree that you can’t find one day, one channel, that is not playing Mac vs. PC commercials regularilly nowadays. So, who really is the good marketer? In my books, that is actually bad marketing, why are they insulting there competitor repeatedly, even though they won’t respond with the same childish insults back. Plus, I thought it was illegal for a company bad mouth there competition directly by name, I thought they were supposed to say something like “this leading brand”, like the laundry ditergent ads. I guess Apple is even breaking the law just to market there OS right. Since there competition is a huge monopoly, I’m pretty sure the lawmakers aren’t so ready to charge the only competition to this monopoly, but to what I do know, it still is breaking the laws on advertising.
Either way, if you want to call Microsoft a marketing company, you would haver to use the same retoric with the precious and holy Apple.
August 28th, 2008
Hello Anonomouse,
I use Fedora 7 Linux on my desktop at home, Centos 5.2 Linux on my work laptop, and XP on my desktop at work (XP is not my preference, but we live in an imperfect world).
As for your point regarding Apple, I would describe the situation thus: Microsoft is a marketing company with some really dodgy products, whereas Apple is a niche technology company with superior products, a very clear business plan, and clever, slick marketing. That is to say, that Microsoft and Apple are chalk and cheese in this regard – for Apple, marketing is the icing on the cake, whereas for Microsoft, the marketing *is* the cake – they simply don’t have anything else.
Apple marketing aims to paint Microsoft as stodgy, uncool buffoons who can’t code – and Microsoft obligingly come to the party by being a pack of stodgy, uncool buffoons who can’t code. I’m sorry if that offends you, but really, it’s the way it is.
It is interesting, in turn, to note how lame most Microsoft marketing is – I mean, here is a company worth *billions*, and they come up with material like “The WOW starts now”? Hardly the stuff of creative genius, is it? However, there *is* an area where Microsoft have excelled since the beginning: something I call “preemptive marketing” – also known as “vapour ware”. If you go and do some research on this, you might discover some very interesting facts about how Microsoft has managed to establish and maintain its monopoly (*warning*: facts uncovered in such a search may seriously disillusion those who are of the “Microsoft is great” persuasion).
Anyway, even though I’m not an Apple user, I think that their ads are very funny – although I can understand that Microsoft users may not appreciate them. (I assume from your post that you are a Microsoft user yourself – I hope that you find a way back from there, to a saner world where software serves you, rather than the other way round).
Cheers