Seriously? Microsoft is late with Valentine's Day Edition Zune

[via Gizmodo]

On the day of Steve Job's Macworld keynote announcing the MacBook Air and iTunes Movie Rentals, Microsoft announced a special edition red-colored Zune for Valentine's Day gifting.

Earnest customers who ordered the device received an apologetic email last week:

Due to some issues in our fulfillment center there remains a chance we will miss getting your Zune to you by February 14th. We are working hard to get your order to you as quickly as possible ... We will be refunding the entire amount of your order ... We hope you love your Zune and that you will accept our sincere apology.

The good news: customers get their money back, and get to keep the Zune.

The bad news: (joke writes itself).

Meanwhile Apple released a new pink iPod nano on January 22 with the same crass messaging (i.e. Dude! Get this for your girlfriend!), but continues to guarantee shipments (with custom engraving) in time for Valentine's Day for orders placed through the end of February 12.

So, um, dude. Get on that.

New Mac/PC ad: "Misprint"

The "Get a Mac" series of ads are also by TBWA\Chiat, aka Media Arts Lab. Per my comments to the previous post, I'm not much a fan of the Chiat style of ads that call attention to themselves, rather than to the product or brand. (I've also referred to this as "mascot advertising", elsewhere).

Partly because of the domineering influence of S. Jobs, and partly dumb luck, Chiat has had some amount of success in its Apple advertising. The iPod silhouettes are of course a mascot, but they are 1) iconic in their non-specificity (note that they change with each refresh of the campaign); and 2) representative of the actual product in relationship to the consumer, i.e. you + iPod = this dancer.

The dumb luck of course was in the original casting of obscure* author John Hodgman in the role of "PC" in the now long-running series of "PC vs. Mac" commercials. (The ads themselves also work both in that the mascots are stand-ins for products, and that they are engaged in an actual discussion about the value proposition for the consumer.)

The series would likely not have continued much past its original run without Hodgman (and, in my opinion, Justin Long, whose straight man has become increasingly understated almost to the point of motionlessness), who has leapt through hoop after comedy hoop without faltering. (The last round did begin to strain the limits--as writers attempted to communicate in 30 seconds the comedic impact of Vista users downgrading to XP.)

In this latest ad (launched last night), Hodgman nails the peeved eyeglass adjustment like a 1950s television comedy veteran.

Nails it.



*Remember that at the time he had contributed perhaps a handful of pieces to "This American Life", had written for McSweeney's and Men's Health magazine, and not a whole heck of a lot else. His casting came on the heels of his insanely successful book tour appearance on The Daily Show--before he was selling many actual books.

iPhone Phunnies

(via Presentation Zen)
The comedy world reacted to Apple's new iPhone swiftly, and thanks to YouTube, now accessible all in one place.

Saturday Night Live: link

Stephen Colbert: link

MadTV: link

Conan O'Brien: link

Groove down with Steve Jobs

Ok, so let's say you didn't want to spend two hours in front of your computer watching Steve Jobs introduce the iPhone from the stage at MacWorld.

In just four minutes you can listen to the arguably inevitable, and surprisingly danceable remix of two key moments--when he reveals that the iPod, phone, and internet communicator he's introducing are all in a single device, and when he reveals that the device doesn't require a stylus.

The crowd, you can hear, goes absolutely nuts.

(Of course if you did want to watch the whole speech, it's available as a free podcast download here.)

Al Agonistes

Communicating scientific information to a broad public is incredibly difficult. Especially if you can't separate the good guys from the bad guys. Or if the bad guys might be us. I'm hoping to get a little inspiration from this film when I write my next EPA press release.

Also: I cried through the scenes of Bush-Gore recount.

Also: Apple plays an uncredited starring role.

Nitpicking Vista

Not simply because I work for Apple.

Not merely because Christa may take a contract to help a company make the Vista transition.

But because technology blogger Chris Pirillo is a mad f---ing genius of detail obsession, he lists here 65 errors, glitches, disconnects, oddities, and other concerns in a recent Beta version of Microsoft Windows Vista he was asked to evaluate, including every instance he sees where a font resource is applying Tahoma and Microsoft Sans Serif (Windows XP fonts) instead of Microsoft's self-touted (and disputed) new font Segoe UI.

I once wrote a memo like this to a client seeking feedback on their digital brand asset extranet. The sheer volume of information presented in a single brain dump can cause seizures of anxiety and seething hatred in recipients who have never seen the need to do better than C+ work in either their school or professional careers.

But to detail-compulsives like myself (and, I imagine, Pirillo), it's an equivalent high to a first-person shooter videogame in which you switch to the special weapon and lay waste to roomful after roomful of enemy soldiers.

Pirillo, in fact, enjoyed himself so much, he spent his Memorial Day weekend piling on with a list of 65 reasons why Outlook 2007 will suck and an additional 67 Vista mistakes.

The Cube goes Web 2.0

Though Apple has been at the forefront of bringing digital content creation tools to consumers, it has been slow to embrace the Web 2.0 wave (WikiPedia, Flickr, YouTube, deli.cio.us, digg), in which the content of a website is created by users, not by the top-down corporation.

Today, however, an enterprising young fellow took the opportunity to hijack the 24-hour time-lapse sequence on apple.com of the comings and goings of people into, out of, and around the new 5th Avenue flagship store on its first day open, by standing still for several minutes in front of the camera while brandishing a message to his girlfriend.

UPDATE: It's back online.

Click to the time-lapse video and navigate to the 5:00 hour. He arrives about eighteen seconds in.

(At one point today the young lad's message had been excised from the time-lapse video by the top-down corporation.)

If you can't find it, go here to see a screen capture..

The Cube

It's finally open.

The link is to the the most interesting shots in the applestore5thave flickr pool.

And here is the NY Times feature, minus any photographs.

The bits I contributed to (the glowing wall graphics) are too bright for digital camera circuitry to reproduce. Enjoy the architecture (including the crazy glass plunger of an elevator) instead.

Apple ad? Copyright theft? [updated]

TBWA\Chiat\Day: Hey. We could do something kinda like this Postal Service music video.
Steve Jobs: Cool! I like that!

[two weeks later]

TCD: Here's what we shot!
SJ: That doesn't look anything like what you showed me. Why would you change it?
TCD: Well, that was just to give you a sense of mood.
SJ: This is crap. Go back to what you showed me.
TCD: Um...

[two weeks later]

TCD: Ok, so we've gone and reshot this band's music video shot-for-shot like you asked. We even got the directing team who did it the first time. It still somehow seems like a bad idea.
SJ: You guys just don't get it. This ad is great.

Follow the link to see the side by side comparison.

[Update 1/18: Confirmation that the directors of the music video were, in fact, hired to "re-" direct the television commercial.