Oral Hygiene

Microsoft has a secret new operating system they're showing to XP-using Vista haters, reports Cnet's Ina Fried. Codenamed "Mojave," over 90 percent of the focus groups in San Francisco loved it, with at least one moved to effuse, "Oh wow," while using it. When can you get hold of this wondrous new operating system? Right now. Mojave is actually just plain ol' Windows Vista.

Cnet has already seen the footage of the focus groups lovin' it, and Ina suspects the video might go public as part of the campaign to tell Vista's "story" as early as next week. While the whole thing is ultimately a marketing campaign, it does raise an interesting point—how much of the Vista hate is really just sheeple bleating what everyone else is? Chen and I use it everyday (though I use it three times as much as he does), and it's really not Microsoft's most epic fail ever. It's got problems, but what OS doesn't?

Still, it's interesting that the crux of Microsoft's giant campaign is telling everyone that they are wrong, like the-sun-revolves-around-the-earth kind of wrong. I mean, they might be. But it still seems like a weird way to convince people to buy your product. [Cnet via Ars]

Ted Shelton: "Frankly I felt that BlogOn was a waste of time and money."

I think the BlogOn conference was overproduced. In the name of professionalism the organizing firm turned off potential speakers, oversubscribed sponsors, etc.

I would have liked a debatable topic (aside from *blogging = journalism*. Two people slugging it out. Or a devil's advocate taking challenges from the floor.

I would have liked more hard numbers. Facts. Charts. Diagrams. We have the analytic tools to BS-check them; harder on vague opinions and single-points-of-observation.

I found it disturbing how much money was being commanded (from both attendees and sponsors) for a conference at a university. Maybe it was because it was at Berkeley? Maybe we should have taken over a community college or a Cal State or a DeVry. The facilities costs would have been cheaper at least. I heard an organizer apologize and say the next one would be at a hotel, like that would have been better.

Cost wasn't the whole problem. We're at a stage where early adopters are meeting folks who want to leap the chasm. Huge gaps in knowledge, experience, context, culture, vocabulary. It's the gap.

There are huge ideas to be explored, even in the world of applying blogs to media strategy and the enterprise. And most of the big ideas weren't even on the agenda at BlogOn. Probably because it was catering to those who want to commercialize, fund, and otherwise exploit (excuse me, "get in on") the emerging medium.

Let's fork these conferences so advanced topics on business and technology and culture fit the participants. 

[a klog apart]

I've heard it said by Dave Winer and many many others: if only Dean had reinvested half the money raised into the Internet, then ...

OK, so you're the Dean Campaign Chief Information Officer in August 2003. The money starts to roll in. $20 million over six months, $2-4 million per month.

What would you spend the money on?

1. What does your monthly budget look like?
2. What is your application and infrastructure portfolio?
3. How much will you allocate to maintenance?
4. You're building from scratch, so what problems do you hope to avoid through wise architecture?
5. What are your big milestones?
6. Who are your key vendors?

How do you spend in consonance with the campaign strategy?

1. How will you use the Internet to bring offline voters into the campaign at the same numbers as radio or television broadcasts?
2. What is your online strategy for responding to attack ads and opposition pundits in radio, television and print?
3. Online community takes time to build and is very hard to organize geographically. What will you do to match the state-by-state primary schedule?
4. What can you do with online services to serve the campaign in caucus states?
5. You are preparing for Bush to launch in Spring 2004. What are your countermeasures to reach out to moderate Republicans online while the GOP uses its advanced voter email systems to barrage 200 million validated email addresses?
6. How will you lower the cost-per-vote vs. the GOP?

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