Posted on 5 Comments

Ballmer and the cluetrain

Just spotted: Microsoft CEO: catching Yahoo, Google to take time

“We are a little bit late in the game,” Ballmer said. “But at the end of the day it is going to be about the ability to create a mass marketplace for buyers and consumers.”
Ballmer said Microsoft would seek to create a marketplace where consumers want to spend their time and advertisers want to spend their money.
It also plans to leverage the popularity of its MSN, Hotmail and Instant Messaging products, he said.
“We are hard at work on our own core services where at the heart we want the users to be in control,” Ballmer said. “There is a whole set of things we are doing to let the user be in control.”

Oh dear Mr Ballmer… users in control will not, at least in the long run, put up with advertising bombardments and being treated like a bunch of consumers in a mass market. That’s not what people really want, and that’s not how the Internet is really developing. You’ll find out.

Posted on 5 Comments

5 thoughts on “Ballmer and the cluetrain

  1. …users in control will not, at least in the long run, put up with advertising bombardments and being treated like a bunch of consumers in a mass market.

    Tell that to Six Apart!

  2. Wikipedia will be one test of this:

    1. Will those at the head of the Wikimedia Foundation succumb to fundraising temptation and exploit it to “do good” beyond its core mission, via ads? And if so, will the primary copy continue to be hosted at the Wikimedia Foundation or will there be a big split, as there was over the ads in the past for the Spanish language version?

    2. Will donations continue to be sufficient cover costs, with a side question of will it continue to be lean and mean or will employee expenses take over the budget?

    If Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation can stay on track it’s potentially a very good sign of what self-organising user communities can achieve.

    My personal bet is that the Wikimedia Foundation will succumb to the”lets make mooney to do ‘good'” temptation within twelve months.

  3. Brad didn’t want to manage LiveJournal and sold to Six Apart, which is interested in making a return on investment for its venture capitalists, not only in doing good and having fun along the way as Brad’s focus was. Completely understandable that Brad would want to do that rather than have his days eaten by administrivia.

    Good in the short term for Brad but not so good long term for the community and, I think, for Brad’s appreciation for what he achieved prior to the sale, if it does become just another ad-infested “community” site. I think Six Apart got the balance of ad display wrong there, when choosing to display ads to logged in free account holders; and expect that to cost community loyalty over time and also open the market enough for Microsoft or another player to exploit. But time will tell.

    Structuring things so this can’t happen (and a Wikimedia Foundation takeover of Wikipedia from the community of authors can’t happen) is a significant problem.

  4. Structuring things so this can’t happen (and a Wikimedia Foundation takeover of Wikipedia from the community of authors can’t happen) is a significant problem.

    Is that a significant problem or a significant solution?

  5. There are more options than just advertising, and some of those options may be completely new.

    Your prediction may come true, however that would point to a lack of daring and imagination on the part of the wikimedia foundation’s board. I am willing to give give them more credit than that right now… but we’ll see.

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