Influx Insights Tag Feed: microsoft

gates is beating jobs

Influx Insights — 2008-05-21T02:36:01Z

Given the cult of cool around Apple's leader Steve Jobs, it might have been safe to presume that he is leading the search war with bitter rival Bill Gates of Microsoft.

According to Google that doesn't appear to be the case and despite Apple continuing to grab the headlines, Microsoft's Gates is a more popular search term. Despite Bill's semi-retirement he still has iconic status.

Perhaps, Microsoft needs to remember this!

Posted by Ed Cotton

wine bolsters microsoft's marketing

Influx Insights — 2007-09-18T08:21:20Z

The news of Microsoft’s new vintage made its way onto the pages of the Financial Times, not a new operating system, but some wine it had ordered from a South African winery.

Although it sounds as if the Redmond giant is diversifying into arenas, it knows nothing about; instead, the branded wine is rather a smart move.

For the last couple of years, fellow marketing blogger Hugh McLeod has been doing the web PR for a South African winery called Stormhoek. To get the wine talked about Hugh has hosted blogger dinners and this is where the connection to Microsoft came from.

Storkhoek created the wine for Microsoft called it Blue Monster, gave it a tagline “change the world or go home”. The wine isn’t sold to the public and is only available to employees and at Microsoft hosted events.

For a while, Microsoft has struggled to find a right way to pitch itself in many of its corporate efforts. Many times the efforts appear disconnected. A real problem for big companies trying to use television commercials with some sensitivity, there’s always a danger of appearing overblown.

The wine is the perfect antidote.

Here’s why.

1.   It shows they are connected to the world of conversations that are happening through blogs- Hugh is somewhat legendary to the blog wonks in the know.

2.   It’s an unusual tactic, it has talk value because it’s not something you would expect the company to do.

3.   It’s got a sense of humor- The Blue Monster is fun

4.   It’s got desirability-employees and others will want the wine.

Although the top brass has sanctioned this, it didn’t come from them and its all the better for it.

I don’t believe the wine was pre-tested.

Posted by Ed Cotton

why can't anthroplogists lead companies to an iphone?

Influx Insights — 2007-07-12T05:29:18Z

Nokia and Microsoft now have armies of anthroplogists scouring the globe for insight into how people communicate and use technology.

"As an ethnographer for Microsoft, Donna Flynn uses her training as a Ph.D. in archeology to analyze how ordinary folks from London to Beijing make daily use of their cellphones.

She feeds results of her field studies to two dozen designers, engineers and strategists toiling in an unusual research lab on the Microsoft campus. Awkwardly dubbed the Mobile and Embedded Devices Experience design center, or MEDX, it is where Microsoft plots strategies to sell souped-up cellphones that act a lot like PCs."

USA Today

Despite all the collective wisdom and intelligence of these armies,they haven't inspired their designers to create anything as captivating as Apple's iPhone.

Is it because they are looking at what is, rather than imagining what could be?

Posted by Ed Cotton

microsoft's new take on images

Influx Insights — 2007-06-02T03:42:43Z

Geo Enabling the Internet

Influx Insights — 2007-07-05T18:22:02Z

This week at the Where 2.0 conference we witnessed an exciting aspect of the near-future Internet. For the last couple of years the focus has been on ‘what’, as in what is something associated with and what kinds of meta data can be used to make that content indexable and sortable. Now the goal becomes to add location data to content, thus enabling the geo aware web. The map mashup, so prevalent over the last year or two, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah, Second Life is cool, but what about moving around the real earth and its buildings, inside and out. That’s the aim of Planet9’s application,‘Raygun’, which allows you to walk around in virtual cities modeled after their real namesakes and potentially interact with other people in the virtual world. It's currently in private Beta, but promises to be worth a look when it goes public.

Although not brand new Microsoft’s live maps are now 3d enabled directly in the browser via a plugin. Now when you search for your hotel in San Francisco, you can zoom in, look at the building in 3d, and see what landmarks are around it. Then head over to Google maps to see actual pictures of the area via the new ‘Street View’ functionality.

Communities of neocartographers are helping produce the openstreetmap.org map, a wiki based map of the world . The content is submitted by dedicated people armed with GPS units and a desire to make maps open for all to use and share. This project was started because many countries (Great Britain specifically in this case) tightly control map data and that so desperately wants to be free or at least inexpensive.

The gap between the Internet and location-aware mobile devices is rapidly breaking down. Check Twittervision for an example or Boost’s product created by Loopt that allows you to keep track of your friends.

Although the online mapping community is a relatively young movement overall, many of the people involved are very experienced in building amazing applications. There are some real heavy hitters investing massive amounts of money in this endeavor. The kinds of hardware, software, networks, and communities that are available for use on these projects have and will continue to ensure amazing products and ideas. The next few years are going to witness amazing software that is unlike anything you’ve seen on the Internet so far. You really don’t have to think very hard to start dreaming up amazing applications for geo-aware data and how it not only makes the Internet more interesting in general, but also enables more relevant and interactive marketing.

Joshua Brewer
Senior Software Engineer
SFI

touch is the future of computing

Influx Insights — 2007-05-30T05:08:36Z

We are fast moving into a world where "touch" becomes the "way" we control our devices and our computers. Much like Tom Cruise in the movie, The Minority Report, we will use our hands and fingers to manipulate data, just like this video shows.

Apple's iPhone is going to be the first mass manifestation of the technology.

However, there soon will be a time when every flat surface becomes an intelligent, networked touch screen. A space that's will know what exactly what's being placed upon it and one that allows interaction.

Of course, Microsoft is behind this..

The Redmond based giant has been talking to Starwood and T-Mobile about bringing this technology to retail stores and hotels.

Not to be forogtten from the story is the incredible advertising opportunity this technology could offer. Imagine placing a glass of wine down on the touch screen at a bar, it would know what wine you were drinking and could offer you relevant food items to compliment it or another glass of wine at a slightly lower price. Yep, the jobs that humans are supposed to do, but computers might just do more efficiently.

Going back to the Minority Report, the video below shows how this technology is going to radically impact the way we work.