Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger ? McLaws is right on Windows Vista ship date So Scoble says Windows needs more time. I’ve got a beta in the mail from Waggener Edstrom waiting for me when I get back from vacation but I’ve yet to test any previous betas that were stable enough to use.
When I finally do get the newest beta installed I’ll be able to comment better myself. But I will say that I’d have to agree with Robert that it would better to let Windows slip a few months than to let it out when it’s not ready. As much as I’m looking forward to upgrading to a Vista with CableCARD support 64 bit Media Center machince, I’d rather have it delayed yet a few more months and get it right.
But Vista’s delays bring up another point. And that is what do you do as a company when you disappoint. Recently Flickr had some problems and had to go offline. What did they do while they were offline? They had a contest about their tubes being clogged. They invited people to print out a shot of two circles on the Flickr Blog and color them in and submit them to Flickr. And you know what happened? Everyone who submitted a picture got a free month of Pro service added to their account. If you had a free account you got three months of free Pro service.
Now, Flickr being down for a day and Vista not shipping for a few extra months are not exactly the same thing. But the point is that Flickr took the attention off of the disappointment and did the best that they could to turn their down time into something fun.
And Microsoft could do the same thing. I’ve mentioned on this blog in the past (and I may even have gotten the idea originally from Scoble, I can’t remember at this point) that it would be a no brainer for Microsoft to do a photo contest in conjunction with Vista’s launch.
So, if/when they announce another delay, why not also announce a photo contest. Microsoft is going to have some really cool photo features in Vista and what better way than to build buzz and talk about them than a photo contest. Matt Goyer recently blogged about the ability to tag photos in the Vista. Photos are going to be really cool in Vista. But you know what sucks about XP? Those five (I think) basic choices that they give you for your desktop.
Instead, hold a photo contest. Give away a Canon 5D for the top prize. (Canon would probably give this to you for the publicity) Select a panel of a few photography experts as judges. And then you pick 100 winners. These 100 photos would go into a special folder that would represent a default slideshow for Media Center plus would be available for people’s desktops.
You’d need to spend a bit of time with legal writing up the rules and all that legalise stuff. People would need to certify that they actually held copyright, etc. But this could totally be done. And it would be a great way for Microsoft to get some kick ass content. Why pay for a bunch of stock content when you have a bunch of amateurs who would give you just as good stuff for free?
So I say to Microsoft, take the extra time if you need it, but come up with something fun at least that would be a good distraction.