Prompt's TechBlog

Microsoft has been really making some weird videos lately, from their short-lived commercials with Seinfeld, to an ad tricking people testing Vista thinking it was the next OS, and now the video below. I think that Bill Gates leaving his day-to-day role at the company may have had something to do with the company going completely and utterly crazy.

Microsoft hired a boy band and filmed in a video about it in an ironic style that came right out of The Office (how fitting for Microsoft to use that style) to promote its upcoming Professional Developers Conference 2008. Someone at Microsoft must've said "hey guys, let's make a bad boy band song for Windows 7," realized that it really did come out bad and then said "well, let's make an ironic intro and outro so it seems like we meant to do it like that the whole time."



It's actually pretty catchy, and better than most NSync and Backstreet Boys songs were. That still doesn't cover up the sheer finger-scratching-against-the-chalkboard terribleness of lyrics like:

"Windows 7 my love is true,
Now let me use Direct3D to unlock your GPU"

"PCD 2008, Windows 7 is coming and I can't wait,
I'm going to get the first one out of the crates, wrap your Windows around me"

"I'm going to need my developer guys, get tons of content on 160 Gigabyte drives"

It could've been a hit if Microsoft didn't go for the ironic angle. It worked for Wrigley's.

Labels: Advertising, boy bands, microsoft, video, Windows

The web is buzzing this week about recent developments in Viacom's $1b lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement. Viacom alleges that many of its videos are illegally hosted on Google's YouTube, garnering over 1.5 billion page views and taking away potential profits for the video producer. A copyright lawsuit against YouTube is nothing new, but this story took a surprising twist last week when the judge ordered Google to provide Viacom with the viewing history and IP addresses of every user.

To put it simply: this is a ridiculous and frightening precedent. Google has been asked to provide personal information on its users to a third party. If this order holds up then many future cases will cite Viacom vs. Google to gain personal data, rendering the "personal" aspect of it completely worthless. And on a more immediately startling level: Viacom can dig through the IP addresses to find out which users have watched copyrighted content and subsequently sue them.

As a pretty heavy YouTube user myself, this is pretty scary. Not because I know I've watched copyrighted material, but because I don't necessarily know. As YouTube makes no distinction of content, so it's never something I've thought to avoid. I just browse videos and if something interesting comes up, I'll watch it and there has never been a warning of potentially illegal content. Viacom could pull my IP out, determine that my computer was used to watch a clip from one of its shows, and then sue me.

So please Viacom, don't turn this into an RIAA-like suing spree, do the right thing by leaving the end users alone. Even more optimistically: hopefully this order will be overturned and our personal information remains personal.

Labels: privacy, video, youtube

Note: For anyone that is not fully aware of the rickrolling phenomenon, you may want to stop reading this now. For everyone else, please watch this amazing video of Britney Spears and Elliot Spitzer's guest appearance on Dancing With the Stars. Who knew that Elliot could breakdance...?

The New York Times wrote about rickrolling this Sunday for seemingly no apparent reason (didn't newspapers used to, you know, write about news?). An internet meme that started last year, it continues to spread to unsuspecting victims who click on a link expecting to see an amazing video. It's interesting to see how long it takes mainstream media to pick up on internet memes, and also how quickly they die out when they become popular (has anyone seen people writing AYBABTU lately?). The viral spread of memes is astonishing and in just 10 months, the Rick Astley video has been viewed over 12 million times throughout the web.

Then yesterday The LA Times scored an exclusive interview with Rick Astley to talk about the phenomenon and he is genuinely surprised and humble about it. Apparently, he is also about to go on tour with other former popular 80s bands. (Question: if people attend a Rick Astley concert and he plays "Never Gonna Give You Up," are they getting rickroll'd?)

With the trend in mind, here are our Top 5 Rickroll Videos of All Time. These are not the original video, but rather interesting new twists that people have thought of, carrying the rickroll into traditional media, real life, and across memes.

5. The Church of Scientology Gets Rickroll'd By Anonymous

Anonymous, the group that was behind the spread of the rickroll in the first place, decided to rickroll the Church of Scientology in various locations. Someone needs to create a Church of Rick, so Anonymous, get to work on that.

4. Tay Zonday Creates a Cosmic Collision of Cheesyness

Tay Zonday, the little guy with the big voice, was the creator of the infamous "Chocolate Rain" video, which to this day still gets stuck in my head sometimes, decided to help crossbreed two of the most popular memes of all time when he sang Rick Astley's hit. People were already "Tayrolling" people by sending "Chocolate Rain" and so he recorded this video to help. Well played, Tay, well played.

3. NCAA Women's Basketball Game Gets Surprise Entertainment

A college student played the song as a prank during an NCAA Women's basketball game, which led to the article in the New York Times. The coverage that resulted from this is amazing, although it may be the beginning of the end. The trench coat and Rick moves were a nice touch. Sidenote: it's strange to me that women's college basketball has female cheerleaders.

2. Rickrollagram

Someone sent a singing telegram rickroll to a company exec during a corporate meeting. It can't be long before this becomes commonplace and people at work start saying "hey Bill, we have a really important meeting right now, meet me in the conference room" only to be met by a Rick Astley impersonator in a trench coat, singing and dancing awkwardly.

1. Family Guy: Epic Win

Seth MacFarlane, you sir are a genius. Before most people had any awareness of what a rickroll was, Seth rickroll'd America on national television. Those of us in the know were in awe of what we were watching. Millions of people watched, unaware, as Brian serenaded the dance with "a song by a gay guy" and played his keytar in this awesome Back to the Future parody.

Honorable mention: Carson Daly - Late-night Rickroll

I applaud Carson's use of traditional media to rickroll the audience. His set-up was funny, but the problem was, he only played a portion of the video and his follow-through left much to be desired. That cheesy "rickrolled" stamp they superimposed on the mildly-amused audience didn't help. What was great about Family Guy's rickroll was its subtlety, while Carson's didn't have that.

Honorable mention: Telemarketer Gets Rickroll'd

This video hasn't gotten the attention of the other videos as it's new but it made me laugh when I saw it. "You've never heard of Rickroll'd? I find that surprising, since they're your competition."

Labels: astley, rick, rickroll, top 5, video