Tag Archives: Microsoft

Developers, this is your weekend.

WinMoDevCamp is aligning with the Silicon Valley CodeCamp this weekend to help developers learn, share, and collaborate on future mobile and desktop applications.

Organized by Microsoft evangelist Giovanni Gallucci with some help from the Windows Mobile dev team, The WinMoDevCamp San Francisco will be held on Friday, October 2nd at the Microsoft Offices in Mountain View from 10 am to 5 pm with a slew of presenters leading sessions including Susan Kevorkian of IDC’s Mobile & Wireless team, Microsoft MVPs, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and more. It’s free to attend: RSVP here.

With Windows Mobile 6.5 aka Windows Phone launching October 6, this devcamp will help developers learn about the new OS, market direction and trends, as well as highlight opportunities to fuel innovative apps around the new WinMo.

The event continues throughout the weekend with Microsoft resources also attending the Silicon Valley Code Camp taking place at Foothill College.

There, developers have the opportunity to:

- Create new applications for the Windows Mobile Platform

- Meet and work side-by-side with team members from the Microsoft Mobile Developer Experience team

- Migrate existing mobile applications from the iPhone, Blackberry and Palm Pre to the Windows Mobile Platform

- Create applications to support Windows Enterprise Applications

- Test and optimize applications for Windows Mobile 6.5

RSVP for Windows Mobile Devcamp hosted this Friday

RSVP for CodeCamp hosted this weekend

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Everyone has an App Store now. It’s important though – as I was shopping for a new phone last week, that was one of my questions. “Can I buy new apps for the phone?”

Windows Mobile Marketplace is an app store for your Windows Mobile device. Microsoft is now running a contest for the best app submissions, and the prizes are pretty sweet.

• Prizes: 4 Microsoft Surface tables (Developer Edition), online marketing & promotion of your app and challenge trophies for the mantle.

• Applications will be judged on:
  • Most downloads of a free app
  • Most valuable app (downloads x price)
  • Most useful (as judged by Microsoft panel)
  • Most playful (as judged by Microsoft panel)
• Contest runs from launch to Dec 31, 2009.

You can learn more about the contest and submit those apps. Submissions are accepted from all 29 supported countries. If I could code my way out of a hat, I’d enter. I love those Microsoft Surface tables!

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Cheers!

Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at Michelle at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

By Sarah Townsend

Only furthering the argument that the only thing PCs are good for is looking at porn, Microsoft just released a new commercial for Internet Explorer 8, emphasizing the feature that allows you to hide your browser history. It’s not for the weak-stomached.

A little breakfast-time browsing, I see. That’s sick. I have to give it to Microsoft though, this video is extremely share-worthy, only increasing it’s chances of going viral and boosting downloads (if that’s even possible anymore). It has already been Twittered about thousands of times!

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Sarah Townsend
E-mail: theoneinpink[at]gmail[dot]com
Twitter: theoneinpink
Blogs: TechDarling, The Vibe

The State of the Industry Panel at ad:tech San Francisco

L to R: Randall Rothenberg, Rishad Tobaccowala, Carol Kruse, Neil Ashe, Jeff Berman

ad:tech San Francisco drew over 12,000 attendees last week and had a well-documented events and party calendar on the ad:tech blog thanks to Steve Hall.

The State of the Industry Panel (presented by the IAB) was the best keynote of ad:tech San Francisco in my opinion:

It was informative, though-provoking, entertaining, and filled with quotable quotes. Most of all, the speakers were made comfortable by the personable moderator, Randall Rothenberg.

See below for highlights.

Moderated by:

• Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau

Panelists:

• Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo Group and ad:tech Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
• Neil Ashe, President of CBS Interactive
• Carol Kruse, VP Global Interactive Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company
• Jeff Berman, President of Sales and Marketing, MySpace

The room started out empty. Within minutes, hundreds of attendees were seated.

Randall Rothenberg: Where are your companies investing in advertising?

Summarized answers from the panelists:

• Asia (Kruse)
• All digital properties (Ashe, Tobaccowala)
• All online media, especially search (testing brand vs. direct response)
• A focus on mobile
• We want to focus on understanding the whole person through using behavioral predictive analytics (Berman)

Rothenberg: What is the value and contribution of social media?  Is it  just PR hype or something else — a hybrid?

Summarized answers: Old models don’t make sense any more.  Social media is not campaign based, but requires ongoing communication.  The media objective of the past was about where to put advertising – now it’s find where the audience sticks.

Rothenberg: Can Social Media  be a part of a media plan – or is it rather “communications planning” or “influence planning”?

Summarized answers:  Social Media can’t be planned by campaign or by quarter.  It must be an ongoing plan. It has to be authentic, and it has to talk about what’s great, fresh, and trusted.  It’s not a media strategy – it’s a  service strategy, customer service, and product strategy;  it’s branding, not media.

Rothenberg: How does an agency incorporate Social Media then?

Summarized answers: You have to consider “non-working media” versus “working media”. What works and what doesn’t? Agencies have to start by being agnostic. They should have fewer campaigns, and reach more ecosytems. Take a “great creative idea” and take it across all media.  There is no way to coordinate accross multiple agencies.  The consumer is driving changes so fast that we’re all running to keep up.  The Chief Knowledge Officer will be sitting in the position of power.

Rothenberg: Have we boxed ourselves into direct response?  Or is there room for creativity or branding?

Summarized answers: Direct response metrics saddle us with a burden. One recurring theme heard often over the past day (at ad:tech) is that it’s all going to become one — both branding and direct response.  The focus on metrics was in order to get budgets approved. When it comes to building brand awareness, “nothing compares to television” for Coca-Cola.

Rothenberg: How much does creativity matter, compared to metrics?

Summarized answers: Creativity will matter even more. Creativity is not just pictures. Google search is getting more and more creative.  Has the definition of “the great idea” changed?  Or is the palette just larger now?  The end-user or consumer will make the great decision. They will have more decision making power. People choose with their hearts and use numbers to justify what they just did.

Rothenberg: Is content or channels more important?

Summarized answers: Tobaccowala said, “The hysteria of insecurity is now driving the industry.” The point is not which channels to use, but what content to put in the channels.

Conference Chair Drew Ianni wraps it up

ad:tech San Francisco also had great keynotes featuring:

• Jimmy Wales, CEO of Wikipedia
• Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu
• Steve Hayden, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Worldwide
• Pete Blackshaw, Executive VP of Digital Strategic Services at Nielsen Online
• John Travis, VP of Branding, Adobe
• Eric Feng, SVP of Audience and CTO, Hulu
• Tina Sharkey, Chairman and Global President, BabyCenter
• Joel Rubinson, Chief Research Officer, The Advertising Research Foundation

Thank-you to all of the conference organizers, notably Don Knox, Drew Ianni, Jeff Valentine, and Warren Pickett.

Marissa is the CEO and Co-founder of AD-Village.

Marissa also blogs at marissalouie.com and the BusinessWeek blog “Young Female Entrepreneur“.

Find her on Twitter: @malouie

Contact her at (510) 375-1941 or Email her at marissa@ad-village.com.

by Michelle Lentz

In our house, we’ve got 3 PCs and two Macs. I’m a Mac person, but there are just some things I do – such as creating Windows Help files – that don’t take to a Mac. Still, if I had to choose, I’d pick a Mac over a PC anyday.

I was surprised at myself, then, to find out that I really like the new Microsoft commercial. It has a “random consumer” searching for an affordable computer. Lauren, our intrepid consumer, visits an Apple store and can’t find what she wants: a laptop with a 17″ screen for under $1000. She visits Best Buy, where she has a boatload of laptops from which to choose. For $900 she brings home a printer and a laptop. Point made.

According to the Wall Street Journal,

For the commercials, Microsoft’s advertising agency, Crispin Porter + Boguksy, recruited prospective computer shoppers in the Los Angeles area through Craigslist and other sites, with a tantalizing offer to give them between $700 and $2,000 to purchase a new PC.

According to Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows consumer product marketing at Microsoft, the agency told recruits it was a market research firm and didn’t mention it was working with Microsoft. The recruits were told they could keep whatever money they didn’t spend on a PC so they had incentives to look for good values.

Here’s the thing: I never “got” the Microsoft Bill Gates/Seinfeld commercials at all. They were strange, and a little creepy. I also never connected to any of their other recent ad campaigns. I think this campaign may finally hit it out of the ballpark for them, connecting with economy-crushed, cost-conscious consumers.

What do you think of the new campaign?

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net