Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger Robert Scoble asks why not have a photo contest for Microsoft’s new Vista (formerly Longhorn) software?
“Why buy the rights to a photo from a photo agency (I think that’s how they got the rights to the “bliss” photo in XP)?
Here’s what I’d like to do — let me know if this idea is interesting:
Why not take that money and hold a world-wide photo contest. Top 1,000 photos get posted to a Web site. Maybe we could even partner with Yahoo’s Flickr on this?
The top 10 get included in Windows Vista. The grand prize winner would get included on the Windows Vista desktop.
Judges could be famous photographers and Microsoft executives.”
Couldn’t agree more Robert. This is a fantastic idea. You’d get much better photos and generate a ton of good PR from this.
Even better than the top 1,000 photos getting posted to a website, how about including all 1,000 in a special folder preinstalled on PCs as a built in screen saver option or custom slide show in Media Center. The same four boring old stock photos that came with XP were horrible. How about some real photo art to go with the box?
Alternatively, by partnering up with Flickr, Microsoft could create a permanent group on Flickr of these 1,000 photos and make a huge splash by using the Flickr API to create a direct plug in for Media Center without having to even host the photos on the hard drive.
I know that I’d sure submit some photos to a contest like this and blog about it too. Seems like cheap PR. Brilliant Scoble, brilliant!