Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft
Microsoft launches Windows 7 ad campaign, and it's sickeningly sweet
by Brad Linder Sep 11th 2009
Sex sells. You knew that. But you know what else sells? Cute. And that's the approach Microsoft is taking with its first ad for Windows 7.
Microsoft has been putting out high profile ads for the last year or so, promoting PCs and briefly Jerry Seinfeld. But for the most part these ads have been based on image and haven't really mentioned Microosft's core products: it's operating system.
The latest ad features Kylie, a little girl who we earlier learned was a PC. This time she has put together a slide show displaying some of the nice, happy words that people have said on the internet about Windows 7 along with happy pictures of ridiculously cute things like a bunny wearing a hat.
Of course, the ad still doesn't really tell us much of anything about the actual product. But you know what? Sometimes the best ads don't. If you want to know about Windows 7's security features, new taskbar, improved media center functions, or other tidbits, you just have to hop online and look them up. This is the kind of ad that's supposed to make you feel good about the product, not teach you about it.
You can check out Kylie's first ad for Microsoft after the break. The funny thing is that at the time it was launched, Kylie's "I'm a PC" video was one of the few in the series that actually showed some of the things you can do with a PC, and implied it was so easy a 4 and a half year old girl could do it. I'm not quite as convinced that she could really have put together the slideshow above on her own... or have chosen the music.
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The earliest "home computers required skills far beyond what today's most hands-on computer enthusiasts need to master. The earliest promise of computing at home came from an obscure company called MITS, in the form of the Altair. A DIY, soldering iron and lots of patience required, read output off the LEDs on the front panel, hope you took computer science classes kind of hobby machine, we owe the Altair one major thing; Microsoft. Founded around the BASIC language interpreter Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote for the fledgling machine, "Micro-Soft" wouldn't be the company we know today without the Altair 8800. 
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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
