First, here’s a video of venture capitalist Fred Wilson’s keynote speech at Web 2.0 this past week covering the New York internet industry from 1995 to 2008. Via Boing Boing.
Secondly, BuzzFeed posted a really great visual timeline of internet memes. You just need to check it out– nothing I say is going to do it justice.
I like this new Microsoft commercial. It’s hip–which is really pushing the envelope for Microsoft, but I think it’s an important step for them to reframe their brand. It almost feels like a soft drink ad, and that’s the key word: feel.
The object of this ad isn’t to make people run out and buy Microsoft products, it’s to change their perception of the brand. And before consumers actually do make a purchase, they’ll have to feel something different. Something positive.
I think this commercial does a better job than the prior Seinfeld ads. They were confusing to most people, and even the ad industry couldn’t agree on its effectiveness or lack of. Not to say that the ads were bad, but I think it’s difficult to change a consumer’s perception of a product if he can’t easily interpret and embrace the product’s message.
This ad is good; I even like the use of celebrities. This is a step in the right direction for Microsoft.
I’ve been playing around with the new Google Chrome web browser tonight and I think it’s awesome (I’m using it right now).
This comes at a great time (for me), since Internet Explorer has been driving me crazy for the past 2 weeks. Almost every time I launch Internet Explorer from my Desktop Shortcuts, I’ve been experiencing a long delay, so long that half the time my homepage doesn’t even load. I probably wasted an hour yesterday on something that should have taken me 10-15 minutes.
Anyway, so far, I’m really happy with Chrome. I like:
the ability to go back and forth between tabs/websites quickly and easily
thumbnails of my most visited sites
being able to enter both web address and searches in the same field
I haven’t experimented with the shortcuts yet, but hope to do so later this week. I was a little confused with the navigation of the browser at first, but was able to get comfortable with it pretty quickly.
If you haven’t downloaded Google Chrome yet, click here.
