Text 17717, 96 rader
Skriven 2007-05-03 19:53:52 av mike (1:379/45)
Ärende: Microsoft Talk Fails to Impress
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From: mike <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131463-c,tradeshows/article.html

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MIX 07 keynote attendees abandon digital entertainment marketing presentations.

The last thing a company wants to do at a keynote speech is clear a room. But
that's just what Microsoft Corp. succeeded in doing during Tuesday's keynote at
MIX 07 in Las Vegas.

Following a talk by Microsoft's President of Entertainment and Devices, Robbie
Bach, Microsoft introduced a panel of "experts" to talk about the role of
marketing with the growing complexity of digital entertainment on the Web. But
soon after the panel began, several hundred attendees, many of them Web
designers and developers, began streaming out of the room. By the end of the
talk, there were only a few dozen attendees remaining.

Users of Twitter.com, a Web site where users can chatter in real time about
where they are and what they are doing, were especially gleeful in pointing out
how disinterested attendees were once Bach left the stage.

One user who uses the handle "krohrbaugh" and lists his name as Kevin Rohrbaugh
on Twitter wrote during the panel, "Bailing on the marketing keynote like most
of the rest of the audience; isn't rule number one of marketing to know your
audience?"

Another Twitter user, who according to his Twitter profile actually works for
Microsoft, also reported on the mass exodus. "People are streaming out of the
keynote and it isn't even done. Pretty bad," said Tobin Titus, who posts by
"tobint" on Twitter.

The keynote began innocently enough, as Bach stepped on the stage and promised
to shed light on why, from a marketing perspective, Microsoft is so interested
in building out a Web-based platform and community of high-impact designers.

As part of this, Bach said he would elaborate how Microsoft is delivering on
what it calls a strategy of "connected entertainment." He defined that as a
strategy to use the Web to provide consumers the ability to have multimedia
content whenever they wanted and on a range of devices.

"These are the things they want to tie together," Bach said. "Our job is to
make sure we can deliver that connected entertainment experience."

Microsoft has been ramping up its strategy to move much of its
revenue-generating future to providing the latest multimedia experience on the
Web. The company has invested significantly in the past several years in
Web-hosted services, tools for cutting-edge Web design, providing Web-based
entertainment on the PC and its Internet-enabled game devices, such as the Xbox
360 console.

To prove his point, Bach proceeded to trot out a series of Microsoft partners
and customers who were using the company's technology to build creative ads and
services. But according to keynote attendees, Bach did not succeed in proving
his point.

It's true that some of the applications on display from companies such as
Nissan, Disneyland Hong Kong and BBC Radio were impressive. The BBC
application, which delivered in high-definition Web experience that provided
personalized media clips based on preferences to users, especially impressed
attendees.

Richard Rasala, associate dean of computer science at Northeastern University,
called the BBC application "the best by far" because it actually provided a
unique entertainment delivery mechanism for the end user, unlike some other
examples.

Still, an impressive demonstration does not point a prove, Rasala said. He said
that when Microsoft and other companies create communities around their
technology, it's usually accidental, not created by any ad placed strategically
on a Web page or in a game.

"The Xbox community existed, but the Microsoft ads [in games and on Xbox Live]
then got moved around quite by accident, not by design," Rasala said. "It's
unclear that many companies can replicate that pattern by design."

After Bach's keynote, it was difficult to find attendees in the hall that did
not work for Microsoft. Nine out of 10 attendees approached for comment by the
IDG News Service after his talk were from the company.

A representative from Microsoft's public relations agency insisted Tuesday that
the show was at "maximum capacity," defining that as 5,000 attendees. But
another member of the press at the show said that a Microsoft representative
reported that there were about 1,500 to 2,000 attendees at MIX 07.
===



Maybe Microsof tshow advertise more in PC World, they may get better articles
written about them.

  /m

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