3 ms·

It's not exactly fair to call John Gruber a "Mac fanboy" and dismiss him at that. He's got a point with his postings: Microsoft touted Seinfeld for a LONG time

by unalone 18y ago

It's not exactly fair to call John Gruber a "Mac fanboy" and dismiss him at that. He's got a point with his postings: Microsoft touted Seinfeld for a LONG time and then dropped him after two weeks. They announced this not from the ad firm they hired but from their PR department, which is indicative of the fact that this wasn't a decision straight from the firm. That all leads to the conclusion that Microsoft is slightly panicking. Considering how adamant Gruber is AGAINST things that Apple does that he DOESN'T like, I think it's fair to say that he has a reputation for being fair-minded. And, you know, if a ton of fair-minded people like one product (Apple), perhaps there's a logic behind their liking it. You never know. It's possible. ;-) As for your saying that this is good because it can't be understood: I'm going to call BS. Being deliberately vague never works for anybody. The ads WERE understandable (hey, guys, Bill Gates is pretty cool, and we're not a faceless empire!), so your point doesn't quite work, but things that you can't understand are either things you can LEARN to understand or they're poorly done. Simple as that.

mattmaroon 18y ago
Lol. Bill O'Reilly often points out some minor gripe he has with a conservative and uses that to tout how unbiased and moderate his views are. And his viewers lap it up. What you said about Gruber is the same thing. Which is not to say that I do (or anyone should) simply dismiss his arguments because of that. He is a fanboy, in fact, he's the closest thing to a leader they have. If he told his readers to march on Washington, there'd be a million Priuses (or is it Prii?) with Apple bumper stickers clogging the expressways in every state. I'm truly impressed that he's made such a career out of it, but if you don't think that the fact that most of his income is derived from blogging about how great Apple is taints his views, you're simply and obviously wrong. Here's a thought experiment. Suppose you were Microsoft, and you made a series of ads, planning the first two and possibly a third to be with Jerry Seinfeld (pending reception of the first two) and the rest with lesser celebrities or none at all. Would you not still hype them up for a couple months beforehand? I mean, you just hired possibly the biggest celebrity in TV history to do your TV ads. You wouldn't be issuing press releases, even if it were just for the first two weeks of a year-long campaign? I would. So then, suppose they get a highly mixed reception and you continue on with your original plan of switching to the other ones. People start asking you why. What do you tell them? They answered through their PR department because that's who questions to Microsoft (or any large corporation) go to. The PR department. That's the point of a PR department, to be the liaison between the company and the press. CPB group's job is not to talk to reporters on Microsoft's behalf, and it would be unusual if they were the ones issuing press releases and statements on Microsoft's behalf.
- unalone 18y ago
  You used "fanboy" like a negative term when you referred to Gruber. The name has negative connotations. Here you dismiss him again by calling him a "fanboy leader" and generalizing against Apple users and Gruber readers. People read his stuff not because he constantly supports Mac, but because he's a good writer, he finds good links, and he tends to be pretty honest about how he feels. I read him before I was a Mac user, and it was the things that he pointed out that made me certain that I wanted a Mac. I don't think that's fanboyish of him, though: he honestly pointed out interesting stuff, and he never acts with a bias towards Apple, beyond the bias of them working well for him. If Apple does a bad job, he points it out. I'm not digging your style, I must say. Comparing my point to Bill O'Reilly's style is pretty distorted. My point - that if a lot of smart people are also big Apple people, that Apple may actually be making the best products - is hardly irrational. I don't know why you've got a problem against Apple, or why you like tinting every lens in favor of Microsoft, but it's not pleasant and most of your posts have things in them that seem sneering towards things I genuinely like. Apparently your big web site is also a blog that got famous for being offensive, so that's no big surprise, but at the same time you'll forgive me from finding it a bit immature of you. You think Microsoft only had three ads planned? You think they dropped only a single ad? Citation? And if they DID overadvertise Seinfeld for only a few ads, I'd say that was a bad move on Microsoft's part.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    I'm not dismissing him. But he makes his living by writing a blog that Apple fans read. No offense, but if you believe he is unbiased despite that, you're naive. I don't have any particular love for Microsoft or loathing for Apple. I really don't care. I don't like the fanboy mindset that's pervaded the tech media, where Apple can do no wrong and Microsoft no right. I see Apple fans routinely criticize Microsoft for the DRM in Vista (which affects the 8 people who have a Vista PC with BluRay hooked up to an HDTV but not through an HDMI connection that supports HDCP) but not Apple (who has done more to promote and benefit from DRM than anyone by a factor of 1,000) and I call bullshit on it. If that's offensive or immature, then I'm OK with that. My blog is neither famous nor big. I don't make any money at all from promoting Microsoft. Gruber, on the other hand, makes money from being an Apple fanatic. And of course, that doesn't mean that he can't form a coherent argument, but it does mean that you need to take whatever he says about Microsoft with a grain of salt. I do think Microsoft dropped at most 1 Seinfeld ad. My citation would be Microsoft's and Crispin Porter + Bogusky's statements to the press. Not to mention the fact that he took Microsoft's response to the press coming through their PR agency (whose main job it is to respond to press on their behalf) to be any sort of proof of anything. Where's your citations, other than baseless illogical heresay on fanboy blogs?

by unalone 18y ago

mattmaroon 18y ago

Lol. Bill O'Reilly often points out some minor gripe he has with a conservative and uses that to tout how unbiased and moderate his views are. And his viewers lap it up. What you said about Gruber is the same thing. Which is not to say that I do (or anyone should) simply dismiss his arguments because of that. He is a fanboy, in fact, he's the closest thing to a leader they have. If he told his readers to march on Washington, there'd be a million Priuses (or is it Prii?) with Apple bumper stickers clogging the expressways in every state. I'm truly impressed that he's made such a career out of it, but if you don't think that the fact that most of his income is derived from blogging about how great Apple is taints his views, you're simply and obviously wrong. Here's a thought experiment. Suppose you were Microsoft, and you made a series of ads, planning the first two and possibly a third to be with Jerry Seinfeld (pending reception of the first two) and the rest with lesser celebrities or none at all. Would you not still hype them up for a couple months beforehand? I mean, you just hired possibly the biggest celebrity in TV history to do your TV ads. You wouldn't be issuing press releases, even if it were just for the first two weeks of a year-long campaign? I would. So then, suppose they get a highly mixed reception and you continue on with your original plan of switching to the other ones. People start asking you why. What do you tell them? They answered through their PR department because that's who questions to Microsoft (or any large corporation) go to. The PR department. That's the point of a PR department, to be the liaison between the company and the press. CPB group's job is not to talk to reporters on Microsoft's behalf, and it would be unusual if they were the ones issuing press releases and statements on Microsoft's behalf.

unalone 18y ago
You used "fanboy" like a negative term when you referred to Gruber. The name has negative connotations. Here you dismiss him again by calling him a "fanboy leader" and generalizing against Apple users and Gruber readers. People read his stuff not because he constantly supports Mac, but because he's a good writer, he finds good links, and he tends to be pretty honest about how he feels. I read him before I was a Mac user, and it was the things that he pointed out that made me certain that I wanted a Mac. I don't think that's fanboyish of him, though: he honestly pointed out interesting stuff, and he never acts with a bias towards Apple, beyond the bias of them working well for him. If Apple does a bad job, he points it out. I'm not digging your style, I must say. Comparing my point to Bill O'Reilly's style is pretty distorted. My point - that if a lot of smart people are also big Apple people, that Apple may actually be making the best products - is hardly irrational. I don't know why you've got a problem against Apple, or why you like tinting every lens in favor of Microsoft, but it's not pleasant and most of your posts have things in them that seem sneering towards things I genuinely like. Apparently your big web site is also a blog that got famous for being offensive, so that's no big surprise, but at the same time you'll forgive me from finding it a bit immature of you. You think Microsoft only had three ads planned? You think they dropped only a single ad? Citation? And if they DID overadvertise Seinfeld for only a few ads, I'd say that was a bad move on Microsoft's part.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  I'm not dismissing him. But he makes his living by writing a blog that Apple fans read. No offense, but if you believe he is unbiased despite that, you're naive. I don't have any particular love for Microsoft or loathing for Apple. I really don't care. I don't like the fanboy mindset that's pervaded the tech media, where Apple can do no wrong and Microsoft no right. I see Apple fans routinely criticize Microsoft for the DRM in Vista (which affects the 8 people who have a Vista PC with BluRay hooked up to an HDTV but not through an HDMI connection that supports HDCP) but not Apple (who has done more to promote and benefit from DRM than anyone by a factor of 1,000) and I call bullshit on it. If that's offensive or immature, then I'm OK with that. My blog is neither famous nor big. I don't make any money at all from promoting Microsoft. Gruber, on the other hand, makes money from being an Apple fanatic. And of course, that doesn't mean that he can't form a coherent argument, but it does mean that you need to take whatever he says about Microsoft with a grain of salt. I do think Microsoft dropped at most 1 Seinfeld ad. My citation would be Microsoft's and Crispin Porter + Bogusky's statements to the press. Not to mention the fact that he took Microsoft's response to the press coming through their PR agency (whose main job it is to respond to press on their behalf) to be any sort of proof of anything. Where's your citations, other than baseless illogical heresay on fanboy blogs?