Ampers & Dot

If you’ve been watching any primetime TV recently (or walked through Times Square) you may have noticed ads for something called “Droid”. Here’s its main TV spot:

At first you’re thinking - oh, white screen, poppy jingle, must be another iPhone ad! - but then you start paying attention and realize it’s an ad taking direct shots at Apple and you’re left with an ominous mention of the Droid. The Droid, is an upcoming Android OS phone by Motorola, which launches on Verizon next week. As the anti-iPhone commercial tells you, the Droid packs a big pixel-packed touch screen, full keyboard, 5mp camera with flash, multi-tasking abilities, and more - many things the iPhone doesn’t offer.

Verizon’s dropped the hammer on marketing the Droid. They’ve gone all out to push the message of a superior device to the masses. And you know what? It’s worked. It’s worked really, really well.

From people opting into the Droid’s mailing list, to the bigshot blogs covering the pre-launch hype, the Droid’s marketing is a total success.

Hell, Gizmodo published a post today called “How Motorola Stopped Sucking“. Seriously? It was that easy? One phone and their back? And wait, after all that “iDon’t” jargon, it turns out the Droid is actually pretty comparably built to the iPhone. So it basically comes down to: do you want a keyboard? Apple OS or Android? There’s no “better” for either of those questions. But the Droid’s taken a stab at the iPhone claiming superiority.

Where does Droid get off taken a direct approach at a competitor like that!?

Oh, right…

Here’s my take on all this: is the Droid an iPhone killer? No. Is there going to be an iPhone killer? No. The iPhone is going to continue leading the way for at least another generation to come. But, as I’ve said many times before, there is plenty of room for iPhone-killer marketing. I think the Droid’s launch is a perfect example of what the competition should be doing with each launch. Step up the game and force Apple to keep innovating to remain on top.

In the end the Droid looks like a great device and Android 2.0 is probably pretty sweet too. But does it matter for this hype? No, not really. Thanks to the abundance of marketing, there are enough consumers excited about the Droid without ever touching or seeing one that Verizon’s bound to sell out next week. And in the end, when have consumers been excited about a Verizon phone? I say good job all around.

YouTube announced this week that it’s launching a real-time search engine for video comments. Or, as I’m calling it, the worst idea of the week (and, as that post points out, this is Balloon Boy week… so that’s really saying something).

YouTube is likely looking for a way to keep up with the buzzwordiest term of the month, “Real-Time”, and while it already has features to let you see new videos in real-time, giving its users the ability to search through recent comments as soon as they are posted might have been the next logical step. Now I’m not sure if you’ve recently read any YouTube comments, but if there one thing we don’t need immediately it’s incessant trolling.

Comments on YouTube videos represent just about all that is wrong with the internet. There’s constant spamming, derogatory sexism, racism, homophobia, and just awful hate - not to mention worse grammar and spelling than two monkeys playing scrabble… in a foreign language. With letters that somehow only spell swear words. I feel dirty just thinking about some of the comments I’ve seen on YouTube videos.

xkcd, as always, has a great take on the problem:

Why would we need to get to this mess of the web quicker? Take a look at the screenshot from YouTube’s announcement - who would want to see those comments in the first place? Not everything needs to be real-time.

There’s a justified rush to conquer the real-time web - it’s the source of what’s driving most online innovation and I think a lot of good is coming from it. I mean, the reason I like Twitter is because it’s the best source for right-now answers. It’s become my real-time search engine. But YouTube comments that just happened? I can wait…

Of course there is one worthwhile use-case: social media monitoring. Marketers that track their products/brands/campaigns will have an easier time getting live results from YouTube comments - which, let’s face it, probably won’t be positive comments. But this also presents marketers with the new challenge of another real-time channel. Just as quickly as they can discover comments, so can consumers - and as the race to drive the real-time web continues, so does the race to control it.

In the end, I’m excited to see more developments of the real-time web, but this is a classic case of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” engineering.

Today, October 6th, is a huge day in history: Microsoft released Windows Mobile 6.5 to the masses. But you already knew that, right? No. Of course you didn’t. And that’s what today’s post is about…

Loyal readers know well that I’m a Windows Mobile user - and I have been for the last six versions of the mobile operating system (Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 2003SE, Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile 6, Windows Mobile 6.1, and now Windows Phone (apparently what they’re now calling Windows Mobile devices from WM6.5 and on)). So obviously I’m a bit excited about the today’s official release of the new build.

But apparently, I’m the only one.

I’ve previously criticized Palm and RIM for soft-launching devices and not stirring up interest the way Apple does, but we’re not talking about a single phone here, we’re talking about a full Operating System, bound to run on 30+ phones by the year’s end. Microsoft even did the right thing: they set a firm launch date (that didn’t overlap with an Apple announcement) and even told a few people about it in advance (go figure!). But today, the big day we’ve all I’ve been looking forward to, I have to ask: where’s the delivery?

In short: it’s just not there. And the sad part is that I just don’t really have an excuse for the lack of enthusiasm from the tech community. Here’s the best rationale I can do:

• The masses love the iPhone. The iPhone is awesome and has stolen all of the mobile thunder for the year (yes, it did come out two years ago, but has gained enough momentum to steamroll the competition).
• The big blogs love the iPhone. Both Gizmodo and Engadget took the opportunity of Windows Mobile 6.5’s launch to bash the new build. Thanks guys. I’m not saying WM6.5 is perfect (in fact, I’m not saying a thing about it in this post - that’s coming later), but how about a little bitartisan reviewing?
• The tech-geeks have moved to Android. As I said recently, the Linux-based Android handsets appeal more to the geeks. While Windows Mobile has always been great for techies due to highly customizable and hackable Windows CE core, Android has linux. Game over.
• Windows Mobile users often don’t know they’re using Windows Mobile. The biggest problem with WinMo is that it’s just so poorly branded. Most (and yes I do mean “most”) people who own Windows Mobile Phones likely don’t know what version they’re using, couldn’t tell you if it’s 5.0, 6.0, 6.1 or 6.5 - let alone if it’s even running Windows Mobile! But it’s not their fault, no one ever told them.
• Microsoft doesn’t really market Windows Mobile. Ever seen an iPhone ad? Wait, here’s a better question: ever not seen an iPhone ad?! Enough said.

So as today comes and goes, with little hype and a lot of disappointment, I think Microsoft should take a good hard look at the results of the launch and reevaluate how they address the next version of Windows Mobile.

Better yet, Microsoft should take lesson from their own playbook: spend money marketing a product, it can work. Hell, with only $80m spent on Bing, you can take a sizable chunk from Google. Google! I just hope they take a fraction of that and put it towards mobile platforms to go up against the other players quickly creeping in on their marketshare. Hell, it’s worked for Apple just fine.

But hey, let’s not get too down on them today. Let’s celebrate Windows Mobile 6.5’s release - and then start the countdown all over again to Windows Mobile 7.

Update: oh. I found the marketing material