Why Microsoft Wins
Last month Microsoft invited 14 bloggers (including Ryan Stewart from the ColdFusion community) to meet Bill Gates. This is one of the reasons Microsoft wins, because they're brilliant marketers. At first I didn't know what to think about this outreach to the Blogger community. But after the free Ferrari laptop debacle, I understand what Microsoft was doing.
On the outside, it appeared that Microsoft wanted to hear the opinions of bloggers, and discuss new technologies. But one wonders why they'd need to invite 14 to their offices, when they could easily read and comment on their blogs.
The brilliance of this move lies in their motivations. Microsoft has just converted 14 bloggers into Microsoft evangelists, if they weren't that already. And in the process, they looked like a benevolent software company that is trying to listen to their customers. And Microsoft gave the bloggers a sneak peak at upcoming technologies, which of course guarantees a lot of glowing reviews on their respective blogs. Oh, and the fact that the bloggers were not allowed to share recordings of this session does even more to foster a 'your our trusted friend' attitude, and makes the bloggers feel like insiders, which of course will generate a lot more positive blog posts.
But I don't blame Microsoft for doing this. I just think they could be a little more transparent with their motives.
Jake Munson
36 Yrs old
Also I know very little about Ryan, but its a bit far to state that he's now a Microsoft evangelis isn't it?
http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=599
http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=598
nor do i think that he's suddenly transformed into a windows evangelist because he likes his free mp3 player :)
Looks to me that hes just being professional and your a little anti MS which was the reason for this post?
"And Microsoft gave the bloggers a sneak peak at upcoming technologies, which of course guarantees a lot of glowing reviews on their respective blogs."
how does a sneak peek at anything guarantee a glowing review? i've seen plenty of sneak peek reviews of various technologies (hardware/software/etc) that were anything but glowing.
i mean, i've seen Vista reviews for some time now..some were positive (ooh, it's pretty), and some were negative (omg it requires one point twenty-one jigowatts of RAM to even run).
how does the fact that somebody got a preview of a technology guarantee -anything-? i think the only thing that could guarantee whether or not a review is positive or negative would be a preconceived bias on the part of the reviewer. such a bias could even lead one to dismiss an objective review as biased if it's even the least bit positive :)
Ryan did not have a Zune, before he got one for free. Now that he's got one, he's writing positive things about them on his blog. Would he have ever said /anything/ if he weren't given one for free? Not to mention, I think he's just about the only person I've seen that likes the Zune...
I think 'guarantee' was too strong of a word, but I still stand by my statement. For example, I'll tell you about a local news story here in Idaho.
Our local news paper has a liberal columnist named Dan Popkey. Typically he loves to tear apart the conservative politicians in our State. One of our Senators wanted to sponsor a bill that he knew would cause some outcry from Mr. Popkey. So he did the same thing that Microsoft did in this case. He invited Mr. Popkey to his office to discuss a secret matter. After telling him all about this new bill, he swore him to secrecy, until after the bill was publicly announced 2 years later. Mr. Popkey kept his promise, and then when the time came, he wrote a glowing article about the bill. But it was obvious to everyone with two brain cells to rub together that Popkey would have torn that bill apart in a normal circumstance, where he wasn't a 'co conspirator'.
Does /everybody/ become an "evangelist" after encounters with celebrities and their products? No, but the chances are pretty good that this will happen, IMO.
Surely the executives at Microsoft are huddled up trying to figure out how you cracked their secret plan for world domination.
It's a lot more than that. How many people does Bill Gates give a personal audience to? I'm sure he doesn't just run around meeting with any old Joe all day, everyday. And it's not just 14 bloggers. Microsoft knows that Bloggers are where more and more people go today to get their news. Personally, I have about 40 news feeds in my RSS reader, most of which are blogs. Those 14 bloggers could translate to a LOT of readers reading positive press about Microsoft and their products.
Com'on, guys. This kind of stuff happens all the time, at a lot of different companies. I'm not the first to be making these observations, I don't know why my comments are getting you guys all worked up.
I see your point on how the true audience is larger than the 14 who met with King Bill, but still a drop in the ocean of potential customers. Besides, regardless of what anyone says about it now, if they ship a crappy product, they will get bad press.
If getting to meet Bill Gates, receiving a Zune and a peak at some new technology is enough to turn you into an MS evangelist (when you otherwise might not be), then I, for one, probably would not want to read what you have to say anyway because it means your loyalty can be bought.
because of the irony of you suggesting that ryan and other bloggers are not being objective when your own (lack of) objectivity on the matter is so blatantly obvious.
aside from the points that i've already made above...
"they looked like a benevolent software company that is trying to listen to their customers"
was there a way that they possibly could have listened to their customers that wouldn't have drawn suspicion from you?
"Oh, and the fact that the bloggers were not allowed to share recordings of this session does even more to foster a 'your our trusted friend' attitude"
ever hear of an NDA? it's a fairly standard practice. nothing sinister about it.
"Ryan did not have a Zune, before he got one for free. Now that he's got one, he's writing positive things about them on his blog."
Ryan likes his mp3 player. if Apple had given Ryan an ipod and he blogged that he got a free ipod and liked it, would that have caught your attention in the same way?
"Not to mention, I think he's just about the only person I've seen that likes the Zune..."
so my interpretation of this is that nobody likes the Zune. the fact that Ryan is "evangalizing" it is due only to the fact that he got it for free and is now brainwashed. because nobody in their right mind could like a Zune?
check out amazon.com and read the reviews. some people do like the Zune. some people don't. but to suggest that "he's the only person you've seen that likes the Zune" does imply some ulterior motive on his part and that's just silly.
now, for the record, i don't think i have any bias for or against MS. I use windows. i'm productive on it. i have an ipod (2 in my family actually, since my wife has one as well). i use itunes. i would consider a mac for my next machine, but can't say at the moment whether or not it would definitely be mac or wintel. i just want to be clear that i don't feel that i'm being reflexively defensive because i'm "pro MS" (i don't think i necessarily am...i'm just not "anti MS").
i quote you from a previous blog posting of yours.
"everyone knows I'm not a Microsoft fan"
fair enough. you don't have to be. everyone's entitled to their opinions. but when you make a public post that's quite obviously biased based on your opinions, you shouldn't be surprised when people call you out on it.
whether you realize it or not, your comments regarding ryan were quite accusatory. and quite silly. he got a free mp3 player and he liked it. he is attending a conference where the subject matter is RIAs...subject matter that he is known for in the community. he's not known for his coverage of Flex. he's not known for his coverage of Adobe technologies. he's known for his coverage of RIA technologies and has announced that he's attending a conference focused on that technology. the vendor is irrelevant.
sorry to have rambled. but...well, you asked the question :)
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/12/28.htm...
Here's a respected industry luminary that agrees with my arguments, and he has a lot more facts to back it up. And if you don't know who Joel is, he used to work for Microsoft, still likes and uses most of their products, but is not afraid to call the kettle black.
does joel agree with your argument that a "sneak peak [sic] at upcoming technologies...guarantees a lot of glowing reviews"? if so, i guess joel's never read a bad movie review (since the reviewers have generally seen the movie before general public has, your argument suggests that all movie reviews should be glowing).
does joel agree with your argument that MS didn't allow the bloggers to share recordings of the sessions in order to "foster a 'your [sic] our trusted friend' attitude...which of course will generate a lot more positive blog posts"? if so, i guess joel's never signed an NDA. there was nothing insidious about it. i've signed 2 NDAs in the past 3 months (neither from MS). it's a standard practice. when adobe has the Scorpio beta testers sign an NDA, are there ulterior motives? no. they -want- beta testers to be objective and to be looking for problems and issues. stop looking for reasons to go on the attack.
now, i'll also state that i don't 100% agree with joel's post. is bribery bad? yes, sure. a product should succeed (or fail) on its own merits (or lack thereof). but as i mentioned above, it's not uncommon for reviewers to not have to pay for the items that they are reviewing (a la movie critics).
but i don't agree that giving a blogger an item for objective review is equal to bribery.
simply giving joe blogger an iGadget and asking him to review it does not constitute bribery. giving joe blow an iGadget and suggesting that there might be more to come if the review is favorable...that's bribery.
if joe blogger endorses the iGadget in spite of it sucking harder than a white house intern kneeling down in front of a democratic president, and joe's readers go out and buy it based on his review, i can guarantee you that his next review is not going to persuade nearly as many people.
you can put it all on the bloggers, but i think some of the onus has to be on the part of the readers. i'd like to think that i can tell when someone has an ulterior motive. that person might be able to fool me once...but it won't happen twice.
if a blogger is given an item for free, i do think that there is an obligation for them to disclose that piece of information during their review. but that doesn't mean the company who provided the item is at fault. marketing is marketing and everybody does it.
i can't help but feel that if the company in question were...oh, i dunno...Apple...that you'd be wholeheartedly applauding their efforts at keeping in touch with the wants and needs of the community and for putting forth the effort and expense to bring a subset of that community to their headquarters for a face-to-face with Steve Jobs. i know you'll disagree. and at that, we should probably agree to disagree and move onto other things. we've long since reached the point of diminishing returns.
My basic argument is that this charade that Microsoft did with these 14 bloggers was plain and simple marketing. You yourself said "marketing is marketing and everybody does it". When I first heard about this 'conference' or whatever it was called, it was spun as an outreach to the blogging community, to gain their opinions. I seriously doubt that Microsoft will change any policies based on what 14 bloggers have to say, even if they are influential bloggers. There are a lot easier and cheaper ways to find out what bloggers think. For one, read their blog!
Charlie, I think you and I are saying the same thing in a lot of cases, and we can pick little sentences here and there to argue about, but like you said, I don't see that we're getting anywhere.
And for the record, while I am not a Microsoft fan, I do use Windows and I believe it's the best OS currently on the market. I hope that changes, because I think competition is good for everybody, but for now I'm sticking with Windows.
If I had paid money for the Zune I would have written the exact same thing. I had expected the Zune to be this horribly tragic experience and found it to be actually pretty cool, so I wrote about it. Frankly I doubt that anyone really cares what I think of the Zune, I'm not Engadget or Gizmodo. I just thought all of the Zune hate was misplaced so I said so.
I like Microsoft. I like Adobe. But I LOVE Rich Internet Applications :)
"I like Microsoft. I like Adobe. But I LOVE Rich Internet Applications :)"
C'mon, you LOVE Adobe. You may like MS but Adobe owns your heart. :)