Category: Software

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Have Fun, But Don’t Break Windows During Microsoft’s House Party

Microsoft’s Windows 7 House Party—like it’s oh-so new, or silly. Microsoft isn’t running the events or broader marketing but outsourcing them through service House Party, which launched in 2005. House Party’s oldest, archived event is Nickelodeon’s AVATAR launch, more than three-and-a-half years ago. What bugs me about the blogs and news stories is lack of context.

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Apple, Could You do for Movies and TV Shows What You did for Music?

I would like to suggest that Apple make something like “Complete My Album” and “Upgrade to iTunes Plus” available for movies, TV shows and music videos. Such iTunes features could revolutionize how people electronically rent or buy video content.

There are occasional iTunes sales and promotions that do some of what I want to suggest (and hopefully I haven’t missed any important perpetual promotions or features). I’m convinced that iTunes Store could use the upsell “complete my this or that” strategy to further leap ahead of competing digital download services. Of course, content copyright holders and distributors would have to be willing parties to the changes.

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One Mistake Doesn’t Discredit the Windows 7 Upgrade Chart

ZDNet blogger Ed Bott has some crazy notion that the Windows 7 upgrade chart is nothing more than a marketing blunder. But his reasoning is more complex than the chart. Has Ed never heard of Occam’s Razor

Yesterday, I expressed my dismay about what the chart means in a commentary here and today in a Betanews story with response from analysts (They were less concerned than me). On Tuesday, Microsoft sent the chart to veteran tech reviewer Walt Mossberg in response to a query about upgrading to Windows 7.