Microsoft Stopping Seinfeld-Gates ads

Darn.  MicroSoft is reacting too quickly, and is stopping the Jerry Seinfeld - Bill Gates ads.   And just as folks were starting to yammer on about them  (ok, not all the yammering was positive). 

Is this too quick?  I'm not fully sure... but I will miss the ads.  Even though I didn't get them,  I did enjoy watching Seinfeld in something other than endless reruns of the show,  and Bill G was funny too.  Ah well,  there goes a $300 Million experiment, and a $10 Million signing bonus.

Funny Microsoft Ad

Louis Monier leaves Cuil

Cuil has barely launched, and they're already airing out some dirty laundry.  Louis Monier,  their VP of Product, is departing (he is no longer on their About page). 

TechCrunch reported that he and CEO Tom Costello had different ideas about the product road map;  one would have hoped they were on the same page, given they had similar backgrounds, and that Monier was barely a year old at Cuil. 

Monier is considered one of the leading authorities on Search, having worked at Google, eBay for search, and of course having co-founded AltaVista.  So this is a blow.

Forget the botched launch.  I think Cuil has a lot of potential... potential it is not easy to see currently, since whats visible is their lack of relevancy in their search results.  But getting relevant search results takes a long time and lots of money (Kosmix knows!).  What Cuil's main claim is to index faster and cheaper than the mother-ship, Google (see the number of web pages they claim to have indexed, below their search bar, below).  And if that is true, then it has a huge amount of value.... and can potentially be the right piece of the puzzle for Microsoft to bring out the best from its acquisition of PowerSet. 

Cuil also has $33 MM in funding, so hopefully are set for a while (their last round of $25 MM was around April of 2008).  I don't know how much of their money is left, but I would guess that with ~30 employees (per Crunchbase) and being in the Search space, they're probably burning about $700K/month.  So they can weather this storm.

Jerry Seinfeld likes Bill Gates (and Henry Blodget is a fogie)

I hate those stupid Apple ads, where they have a guy like junior Steve Jobs acting superior to a guy meant to be Bill Gates.  I like PCs, I like Bill Gates, and compared to Apple, I also like MicroSoft.  Ok, my opinion, fueled also by all the trouble I have with my iPhone.

Anyway, MicroSoft is trying to make over its image (again), and is paying Jerry Seinfeld...... TENN MEEELLION DOLLARSSSSS ...... to appear on ads with Bill G.  I would have done the ads for ten thousand dollars, but I guess MS didn't get my email.

So the first part of this blog post is about the fact that I like this move.  I love Seinfeld, quote lines from the show and his stand-up routine all the time, want to own as many Porsches as he does, and can totally buy him being pally with Bill Gates.  Good.  Lets all buy Vista. 

Second part of the post - an article by Henry Blodget today, on Yahoo Finance Tech Ticker.  The article is titled - "Microsoft, Trying to Be Cool, Hires Uncool Comic for Ad Campaign".  In the article, he even says he expects Seinfeld to appeal mainly to "fogies like us". 

You know what?  That just proves to me that Henry "Securities Fraud" Blodget knows as much about pop culture as he does about tech issues.  Seinfeld is popular among everyone from 16 - 60 years of age (I'd go further, but didn't check the comScore or Nielsen NetRatings data).  Seinfeld "uncool"?  Puhleeze! 

New Halo game!!

Bungee and MicroSoft have confirmed there is a new Halo game coming!!!!

Why didn't they announce it during E3? MicroSoft's excuse - they felt they didn't have enough time during their press conference, and that they could do it more justice in a dedicated presentation.

To me, sounds like one of two possibilities instead:

a) Microsoft and Bungee's little issues coming to the fore. But this is too low a possibility - no one, least of all MicroSoft, teases their cash cow.

b) A brilliant chess move - start with a really, really solid E3, beating out Sony and Nintendo. Then, when the dust settles and everyone finishes talking about who did best.... throw out this curveball right into the other consoles' faces!!

Amazing. I love it.

Who won E3 '08?

G4 network, as every year, ran a poll to see who won E3 '08.

I'm partial to the XBox 360 (I own it, not the PS3), and also loved the width and depth of the games they showcased in E3. At the same time, I do prefer less cutesy games, so did prefer the PS3 games over the Nintendo games showcased - Nintendo didn't seem to have much on offer for hard-core gamers.

So of course my votes on G4 were: Microsoft, then Sony, then Nintendo. G4's poll results are in, and similar to mine, in answer to the question:

"Who won E3 '08?"

- Microsoft - 57%
- Sony - 32%
- Nintendo -11%