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December 30, 2007

Microsoft Using YouTube To Promote Vista & Live, Leaves Comments Open

Duncan Riley

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Microsoft has taken its marketing push for Windows Vista and Windows Live into enemy territory by offering demonstration videos on YouTube (example above). The new channel (link) was launched December 21.

The content itself isn’t all that exciting, but they do demonstrate various positive aspects of Vista and Live that viewers may not be aware of. The more interesting aspect is that Microsoft would use the Google owned YouTube for such as promotion; it certainly demonstrates just how powerful the market position of YouTube has become over the last 2 years that Microsoft would use it to promote their products.

Courageously, Microsoft has also left comments open on each video. Most people can guess the next part:

vista.jpg

(via istartedsomething)

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 5:29 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Microsoft Using YouTube To Promote Vista & Live, Leaves Comments Open  »TechAddress

    December 30th, 2007 at 5:30 am

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    December 30th, 2007 at 10:04 am

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    December 30th, 2007 at 11:09 am

  4. Microsoft promociona sus productos en YouTube - Nocturnabsas.com.ar

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  1. Jeffrey

    December 30th, 2007 at 5:47 am

    Duncan,
    Pushing out content at 5:45 AM on a Sunday - good stuff ! :-)
    Jeffrey

  2. Jon

    December 30th, 2007 at 5:47 am

    I don’t get it, Microsoft spends untold millions developing the future in operating systems and web technologies (silverlight) and then resorts to simple web video including giving people the option to downgrade. Microsoft might just become the next Yahoo… lots of money without any vision.

    Jon

  3. desik

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:00 am

    Not a great Vista fan but saw something I could use in one of the featured Windows Live videos so some people are going to find it a useful resource even if most are going to gripe about Microsoft just because its so easy too. Glad to see comments enabled , anything less is displaced television.

  4. SuperOpenSocial

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:16 am

    The Internet finally becomes one… perhaps people should not hate Microsoft [too much].. Microsoft made tremendous contributions in modern day computing.. Or if you must find somebody to hate, try to hate Mozilla — this Firefox thing needs big time improvements.

  5. ITrush

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:05 am

    Very simple and short demonstration yet very useful. Thanks for sharing this video.

    Nhick
    http://www.itrush.com

  6. Martin

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:09 am

    It seems pretty suspect that all the videos have around 100 views and then there is one with over 100,000 and only 112 comments (most of them negative)

  7. Chris

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:17 am

    Maybe now they will know the real feedback about the product, it seems like they are living in an other planet and don’t try to fix the product.

  8. Famous Quotes

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:45 am

    People love to hate Microsoft; lots of people use MS products not because they want to but because they have to. MS is partly to blame for it. Remember when one of their big shots said that they will crush Netscape!

  9. David

    December 30th, 2007 at 9:50 am

    Hahahaha, WindowsVista promoters are so innocent. And the commets are still open :D

    Bye

  10. Trae Dorn

    December 30th, 2007 at 9:51 am

    @ #4 — That barely made any sense.

  11. Chris Lynn

    December 30th, 2007 at 10:28 am

    @Jon I don’t think this is necessarily “resorting” to web videos. It’s a pretty good strategy to reach consumers where they spend a fair amount of time, on YouTube, to educate them about features they might not know were part of Vista. This feature still looks like a knock-off of iPhoto, but at least MS is trying to adopt new marketing practices.

    I’m not sure I would say that MSFT has had “vision” in a long time…they are still trying to play catch-up.

  12. Greg

    December 30th, 2007 at 10:46 am

    Even though the comments are predictably negative, and some of them are downright juvenile, it’s still good that they left them on. The amount of sass they’d get for disabling them would be even worse, and this way they look a little more open and less, well, Microsoft-ish.

  13. ND

    December 30th, 2007 at 11:08 am

    Truly the best consumer OS Microsoft ever made. Not that much better than XP, but definitely the best.
    Seriously.

  14. Remy Wilders

    December 30th, 2007 at 11:19 am

    If Microsoft became the company it is today it was, at least in the beginning, because of much pragmatism and opportunism. Then Microsoft became too big and piggyback was no longer that easy for the company. Its nice to see that Microsoft should once again be pragmatic and even accept comments.
    As it turns out the aggressive comments have rather the opposite effect and Microsoft becomes the victim which, more or less unconsciously, gains our sympathy.

  15. Snyggast

    December 30th, 2007 at 11:19 am

    “i wanna be cool like the rest coz i’ve never been cool all my life. so i’ll make fun of vista even though i’m using it. it that ok? “

  16. ScottW

    December 30th, 2007 at 11:27 am

    I find it daring and “in your face” at Google because it lets Google know they’re going after them in their own back yard so to speak. The fact they left it open for comments is just the icing on the cake for M/$. As an Ubuntu Linux user I have found nothing in Vista worth me making an investment in it. But as I’ve posted on my blog in the past….this is a personal choice for the consumer. What works best for one doesn’t necessarily do so for another.

  17. Crunchies

    December 30th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

    I’ve been very impressed with Live of late. The speed has gotten even better than Google, IMHO. The relevancy has definitely improved leaps and bounds with many ’shortcuts’ for conversions, temperature, capitals etc etc.

    I am no basher of one service and will gladly whats best out there — but I do like to give alternative services a try and I must say Live has come a long way!

    Kudos to the team!

  18. Deelip K

    December 30th, 2007 at 12:18 pm

    Agree with the first commentor on that image.
    MS have always made third grade products.

  19. Marco

    December 30th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    Duncan, are you sure this is the official Microsoft channel? I don’t think Microsoft is using a 25 year old employee to publish official MS videos on YouTube…

  20. Abhishek Shrestha

    December 30th, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    I love google but i don’t hate MS either. The fact that MS is shifting thier core framework to .Net is a great vision. It makes developing software either desktop or webased much easier and powerful from any that we knew before .Net. So, MS being another yahoo is just a specultion that ain’t gonna be true. Hope MS is still there till the end so that the competition continues and we benefit. Otherwsie Goog wil be MS if their aint MS in future.

  21. Ghaus

    December 30th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    There are negative comments everywhere….they will close the comments. :D

  22. Bender

    December 30th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

    Whats a “third grade product”?

  23. baronbliss

    December 30th, 2007 at 4:47 pm

    19. Marco [and others]

    Believe it… The videos are like ads all over YouTube. The official Microsoft videos are posted on the official “WindowsVistaAndLive” channel. What makes you think “…Microsoft is using a 25 year old employee to publish official MS videos on YouTube…” Watch the videos and it will all come clear.

  24. Planet Malaysia

    December 30th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

    Such a good promotion and marketing. Good tools have to be use. Good thing have to be copy…. from Microsoft?

  25. 符碼印象 Jack

    December 30th, 2007 at 5:58 pm

    I think YouTube is a great tool for marketing. So if I were Microsoft, I just want to promote my product, even on the platform which is not Microsoft product.

    it’s kind of trade off!?

  26. Craig

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:33 pm

    Simply stated online comments about a product (this product rocks! or this product is crap!) should always be taken like lightly … and I think most people do.

  27. Steve Murch

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:37 pm

    Why is this considered revolutionary, or even interesting enough to post about?

    YouTube gets a lot of visitors. It is free to post there. Microsoft, like any other company, has many marketing videos. Its product is targeted to the mass consumer audience. If it’s free to post somewhere where there are a lot of people, why not post there?

    This idea that Microsoft is deaf to feedback is ridiculous. Ever hear of a service pack?

  28. JA

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

    It’s Ok, just god don’t put a cheesy OS X leopard commercial on you tube.

  29. Brian

    December 30th, 2007 at 9:58 pm

    I am still not sure how are you sure that this is posted by Microsoft and not some just-another-dude..

    Incase you dont know, Microsoft is now paying to advertise for IE7 and that too to Google!!!

    http://www.safariwin.com/2007/.....e-for-ie7/

  30. MS

    December 30th, 2007 at 10:40 pm

    Perhaps the person behind WindowsVistaAndLive will also be posting responses to some of the comments as well. ;)

  31. Marco

    December 31st, 2007 at 2:22 am

    @23 baronbliss

    Thanks for your reply, baronbliss! The profile (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=WindowsVistaAndLive) says it’s a 25 year old.

    Doesn’t look professional to read that videos have been published by a 25 year old. All I mean is that people probably would trust a 35 year old more than a 25 year old guy.

  32. andrej telle

    December 31st, 2007 at 9:30 am

    are those actually real tv adds? I wouldn’t know, since in Germany there are not being shown…

    Even though it is clear that MS is not a first mover in this segment, one has to give kudos to the way they market their product. Obviously none of the techcrunch-readers are target audience, but for the web-newbie everything seems just to be right.

    And how are they to know about flickr, picasa and other online applications?

  33. http://www.meetingflex.com/SearchVideo.aspx

    December 31st, 2007 at 1:03 pm

    Way to go MSFT.

    Video Search
    http://www.meetingflex.com/SearchVideo.aspx

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