Not Again, Microsoft...

In the latest endeavor by Microsoft to be like everyone else but Microsoft, the brand is yet again under fire for the Yahoo/Microsoft integration.   Can it be done?  Will it be a viable competitor to Google?  Will it go smoothly?  Ad Age doesn't think so.  They point out five reasons on what makes this merger hard to swallow.  The 4th quarter timing "seems to offer marketers a lot of risk for very little reward."  Marketer's learning curve in terms of how Yahoo ads and Bing ads will perform together.  Microsoft's execution seems a little short given that "AdCenter isn't ready to handle the volume."  Yahoo and Microsoft's working relationship may be iffy at best as the company hasn't been the easiest partner to work with.  Given that Bing's queries appear to "be coming directly from Yahoo" so will it impact the search market at all?  If everything goes as planned, we should be finding out soon.

This leads me to think that Microsoft as a brand lost cache a long time ago.  That much of the brand, for a long time, has been reactive then proactive in their initiatives.  The fact that Apple surpassed Microsoft as the stronger and more profitable brand is evidence enough.  This is significant as it changes the trust in Microsoft as a brand and company.  Straight from the horses mouth, “Apple is showing high growth, with the launch of its iPad and its new iPhone coming out, and while Windows is a great competitor versus the Mac, Microsoft just hasn't come up with new areas of growth."  "Wall Street believes in Apple because Apple continues to put out new products that capture the imaginations of the press and tech pundits.  Microsoft just hasn't been able to come up with a new multi billion dollar business like Apple."  The stronger Apple gets the more Microsoft seems to be backing into a corner, blindly swinging and missing every time.

A few of Microsoft's FAIL products:  

Zune

Vista

Surface 

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!

It's only been 4 days since the World Cup started and great things have happened.  The US, despite the popularity of futbol, has played well.  Local bars and pubs are full to the brim at 7AM with face painted hooligans and while I don't normally love soccer, I'm way into it.  Checking scores, yelling at the TV, rooting for X country.  Nike, once again, created an amazing video to get our hearts pumping and ready for the match ups.

Not being a regular sports watcher, but a regular TV watcher, I believe ESPN has done a phenomenal job in keeping everyone up to speed on the world cup.  ESPN 3 from what I've seen will let you watch the matches live, replay matches already played, and sent alerts when someone scored a goal.  Given that most of us in the US have to work while all these matches are being going on, its essential.

The ESPN 2010 FIFA World Cup app has been named by the NY Times as a "gold standard" in the category.  The app contains "detailed descriptions of every tournament since the first one in 1930, as well as a Teams tab consisting of player news and biographies, a bracket predictor contest and an index of the top 100 national teams.  A premium version has amplified features, such as live commentary and play by play, scoring alerts and in game video highlights."  Talk about extensive amount of info for a very small price tag.  If you weren't a hardcore football fan by now, you can easily become an expert with this app.

Given that the internett is a "vast black hole" of information, this app channels it into a very useful, handy, relevant and of the moment way.  I'm quickly becoming an ESPN fan and I don't even really like sports.