The danger of not letting your bloggers know… (more Origamisms)

Hi Robert-

I’m glad to see that MSFT is getting more skilled in trying to generate buzz for an upcoming product launch.

The bigboy bloggers have really fallen for this strategy…what lemmings. It is amazing to watch these Old world PR teams adapt to manipulating/shifting perception within the blogosphere.

Leaking pictured, videos, and mysterious flash websites are a great start….. now all you guys need is a hardware product that doesn’t suck. Apple has mastered the ‘launch’…everyone anticipates what they’re about to launch.
I mean how much did MSFT have to spend to hype XBOX 360? You guys are about equal to Sony…maybe a little worse, I’m sorry to say.

I’m a big fan of your blog, but it would be better if the MSFT PR machine didn’t have to approve your various postings in advance…. that’s sort a buzz kill. It would definately make things more interesting, but I suppose it would open legal liability.

Best regards,

-E. David Zotter

“I’m glad to see that MSFT is getting more skilled in trying to generate buzz for an upcoming product launch.”

Are they?

This will be MS talking about a spec. A Month later 2 or 3 OEMs will show a prototype. At the earliest a device will not arrive until Vista’s launch. We don’t know if OEMs will remain consistent or if they will be able to get all the features in at a reasonable cost or if they will be expensive. From there, we don’t really know if having a 4×6 or 5×8 version of a notebook or tablet is really worth it–does it make a good media/personal device? does it make a good laptop?

Personally, All I see is a vaporous hype machine similar to the Hailstorm campaign, the Athens prototype campaign, the PMP/iPod-killer campaign, the SPOT campaign, the XBox2 campaign, etc…

Its an Apple Newton.

OK, its got color, and bluetooth (wifi?) but its pretty much a Newton. Which is not surprising, since MS hired the original Newton architect several years ago.

Which makes me wonder, what took so long?

And why will this succeed where Newton failed (“failure” is actually debatable – I know half a dozen people with 3-4 newtons each stockpiled away for the future so they’ll have replacements)?

Given that I can have a whole computer in a similar sized package these days (looks about the size of a small ibook), I don’t see the market for it.

By the way, Scobie, rather than titling this:

“The danger of not letting your bloggers know… (more Origamisms)”

Couldn’t it equally have been:

THE DANGER OF BLOGGING (HYPING) SOMETHING YOU KNOW SHIT ABOUT

So now its about whether the team should go to the blogger or the blogger should go to the team

Hey, will this thing have the sideshow stuff on it ?

My predictions, based on absolutely nothing:

1. It will have some kind of Sideshow-lite built in to allow playback of WMA and MP3 without having to fully wake the device.

2. It will have 2 upgrade types: USB 2.0 and FireWire. There will be no PCMCIA.

3. It will have Radeon 92xx-class graphics

4. The .NET 2.0 framework will be preinstalled.

5. It will not have built-in DVD or CDROM. EtherNet/WiFi/USB only.

6. It will be a PlaysForSure compatible

7. Its battery life will be surprisingly long. Maybe 5 hours.

Goebbels: how do you know what I don’t know shit about? Hmmm? I have Otto’s phone number. Do you?

Christopher: Otto says you’re wrong. Shipping a lot sooner than end of the year.

Met: I never said they would be shipping on the 3rd. Please go back and read carefully.

Robert…so what? At this point, the chances of this being a “Look, yet another microsoft demonstration without a clear focus”.

Unless MS is making the hardware too, what this is going to depend on is OEMs buying into MS’s hype, or MS just flinging money at them to offset the startup costs. If MS is just showing off yet another damned demo, like the light tables that require some bizarre future world without children or sick people, and where there are maids following everyone around and cleaning up after them.

I’m just not seeing any sign of focus out of MS when Windows is involved.

“Goebbels: how do you know what I don’t know shit about?”

Because I’ve gotten to know you pretty well. Thus far, I know that I knew exactly, if not more than, what you have posted over the last few days, and I consider my information to be “shit”. We all knew an “ultraportable” platform was being worked on.

This post is clearly about the issue of: what happens when the hype exceeds the reality. You said they would be announcing a “device”; they are not, Microsoft is not going to release a device; they are going to release a spec that they hope other OEMs produce devices modeled off of.

Also, Scoble, you mentioned you saw a wooden prototype — wooden!!!… Who gives a shit when Gates himself was holding a real prototype a few months ago!! This is my point: even if you know slightly more (or even a whole lot more) than what you’ve mentioned you cleary know less than what is available from other available sources, and you were the source of the hype. And when people realize this is just a spec and will not be out until after Vista, it will be a disappointment. And that’s your fault; not the fault of the designers for not telling you that you overhyped a tech spec.

Interesting. Nice to see MS trying to hype something. Will it be bigger than Apple’s announcement tomorrow? See, as MS hasn’t really pulled a successful hype job in recent history (everyone’s too excited they let the cat out of the bag years or at the lease, several months in advance) it makes for all this excitement. The funny thing is that the over-hype will ruin the announcement. Will it be priced at $400? Will it have Vista? Hi-Fi? etc. etc.. Sure it will have some but the expectation becomes too much.

With Apple, the hype can exceed the announcements but Jobs will sell it like it’s the best, cutting-edge product out there. Balmer (aka Monkey Boy) unfortunately can’t pull that off. So will this be bigger than Apple’s announcement? Apple is set to announce:

a) iPod Boom Box – will it have extra harddrive capacity? a video screen? Who knows, but it will be touted as the best and sell like crazy.

b) Mac Mini – will it have DVR capabilities for $500? A built-in iPod dock? Front Row 2.0 and an iPod remote? It will certainly sync with the iPod Video so if it comes with this it will be a lock for media centers everywhere and blow the MS media center out of the water.

c) iTunes to sell movies – this just secures the rest of these items. Huge for the industry.

d) True Video iPod – as the current iPod video is only a hold over until the real release of the Video iPod, this thing could be a killer product. Speculated to have a full screen on the front of the iPod (touch screen) and come with HiFi, this thing could be a winner. (Origami may unseat it in the business market – if there is one for the Origami) but otherwise the bulk of 12-45 year olds will purchase the iPod Video. It has even been rumored to have DVR capabilities right from the iPod but I don’t think that will materialize yet.

e) Possible replacement for the iBook laptop with the MacBook laptop with built-in video camera. (I don’t think that this will come out either as Apple still has a bunch of iBooks in stock and usually replace items when inventory is out or very low)

f) iPhone – again, I do not believe this will come out at this point.

So while some of these items will (may?) come out, or other items are released, it is usually a big announcement when Jobs and company invite media to their own turf (to keep the announcement even MORE secretive).

Will MS be able to pull that off? Maybe if they incorporate xBox games in the Origami, include a music player as good or easier than the iPod, a better version of iTunes, etc.. If this flops, the media will not be as nice for their next announcement.

Whoever did this viral thing – didn’t carry it off properly.

MS should have come out and said what it CAN do by now. Not some rumors on what it could do.
Anything that MS can say now will surprise anyone.
Remember that was the argument I had yesterday.

Whoever did this viral thing – didn’t carry it off properly.

MS should have come out and said what it CAN do by now. Not some rumors on what it could do.
Anything that MS can say now will surprise anyone.
Remember that was the argument I had yesterday.

Met: this was a tease to get people to visit the Microsoft booth at CeBit.

They will probably just put Xbox Live Arcade games on it and some “scaled down” MS PC/Xbox Games. The device by what I’ve seen is going to cost at minimum 500 dollars and by my estimates it will fall between the 1000-2000 range around the price of a decent tablet pc. There will probably different versions of the device like the Ipod based on HDD size and features. What will the Xbox 360 Compatibility Be? Im guessing it will be video, photo, and audio streaming to the 360 wirelessly over Wifi with your PC off with data on the HDD. Will it allow me to transfer 360 HD Movie trailers I download, will it allow me to talk to my 360 friends when Im not at my 360 (probably in the future) and will it have more connections then just WIFI that I can use at coffee shops and home, like what about Satellite Based Web /Media Center Connectivity or Satellite based TV or Cellular Capabilities (probably with a PCCard).

After seeing the video Im not really impressed because the video made it seem like it was easy to carry and to be honest it doesnt look like it will. If the item isnt small around the size of an Ipod and thin not thick its going to be like one of those fat PocketPC phones that people tend not to buy becuase they aren’t portable enough.

Christopher: Otto says you’re wrong. Shipping a lot sooner than end of the year.

It wasn’t me, it was Intel and an OEM source. I don’t make up my own information, I just pick from the chatter and try to weave together seemingly disparate threads into a cohesive whole. But shipping dates aren’t fixed. So no biggie. Otto knows more than I do. But I am not sure that holds for all OEMs, least not from what I am hearing. I was just saying what’s out there and what I have heard, and what the press chatter is. But it’s not gospel. But even if shipping that soon, I’d hold till second Vista round.

I would kinda like one of these things, Handheld Pro 2000, I always liked. And big fan of Psion Revo’s, if had instant-on would be perfect.

But then I do agree with the “vaporous hype machine” tagging and agree with Gobbels. And been down the 4 year tar-pitted Tablet road.

Hopeful, but wary.

PS – You miss InkGestures? Loren actually 1.0′ed something. And not something freewareish MathPracticeish.

am i the only one yawning about Yet Another Teaser campaign? wake me up when there’s something actually announced.

Could this be a clone of Dualor’s cPC?? or a XBOX portable…

Waiting for the launch…I LOVE MS

Pull back on a the hype wave that he basically started?

Irony abounds. Who outside of a few Tablet PC Partner Conferences attendee’s and press chatter people like me knew, before that link? Still even I am surprised by the acclerated schedule (even tho saw it coming), I thought UltraMobile would only be in the Vista timeframe, they must want to beta-test the public the first round. Always risky imho.

I understand the concerns you have about the product being over-hyped. But hasn’t the usual beef against MS been that they don’t have a coolness factor like Apple? Apple is always secretive about product launches and releases mystery invites which just serve to hype products to endless limits. Yet in that case it isn’t over-hype and they get a free pass? Frankly, I’d rather MS create this sorta cool hype regardless of whether or not the product is landscape changing.

I don’t think there will be any trouble persuading OEMs to make this, or to push to get it out as early as possible.

Look at the success of the Nokia 770 — which, although being smaller, lighter, Linux-based and apparently with a slower CPU — has the same carryaround appeal.

The 770 was designed to fit in a pocket (but still display an 800-pixel-wide webpage for satisfactory surfing). I carry mine around in my hip bag all day. Yet sometimes I would prefer a slightly larger screen, and I’d settle for carrying it around in my backpack.

Main point for me? I use it all the time as soon as I step away from the desktop.

But, Roger, we don’t know if the 770 is success jsut because you use it? Dell is just getting around to Tablets.

First of all, since Microsoft will be building none of the hardware, exactly WHAT is it going to announce?