The Bottom Rung

Users put Microsoft on notice, via Twitter

Angus Gastle — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:21:27 +0000

Whether you love it or hate it, Microsoft Outlook is the ubiquitous email client for millions of cubicled office dwellers. In a great example of the power of social networking, fans of the email client have banded together in the hope of getting the software giant to rethink it’s recently announced upgrade.

A quick Whois search revealed that a David Geiner, of Email Standards Project fame, is leading the charge with the recently launched FixOutlook.org. The slick site pulls tweets from the Twittersphere (I think I just coined a new term!) and displays them alongside the person’s profile picture. Any tweet with the fixoutlook.org url will be pulled in and displayed on the page in an attempt to get Microsoft’s attention. Based on the amount of press the press has received in just 24 hours, I’d say they have it by now.

As of now, the site has over 17,000 tweets which is almost double what it had when I took the screen cap above this morning.

This ingenious little tie in with the well known social network makes giving your input to Microsoft as easy as sending out a tweet. And starting a conversation with their most loyal fans to help improve one of their best selling products should be should be exactly what Microsoft wants to do. For that matter, any company from Audi to Kelloggs could start promote this kind of engagement with their customers.

By launching this site, with its smart integration into a well known social platform, Mr. Geiner and the team at the Email Standards Project could very well change the course of Outlook in 2010.

Source: Fix Outlook.org

Mario Lemieux’s Stanley Cup Party

Angus Gastle — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:51:20 +0000

Good advertising

Angus Gastle — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:00:38 +0000

“Good advertising is anything that people don’t mute, skip, ignore or throw things at.”

- Senior VP, Mclaren McCann

Apple remixes App Store for live feed

Angus Gastle — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:27:36 +0000

Apple you sly dog. Always have to be the coolest kid at the nerd convention don’t you.

This year they came up with the best idea for 20 30″ cinema displays I’ve seen yet (okay, only one). It shows a live feed of apps as they are being purchased from the app store on iphones. Brilliant way to visually show off your product to protential clients (in this case, developers).

Source: TechCrunch

DC drops Gymkhana Two, infomercials still hip

Angus Gastle — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:58:29 +0000

Source: DC Auto