Microsoft Wants Laptops Back

December 28, 2006

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Microsoft Wants Laptops Back

after Scott Beale announced that he got one over at Laughing Squid. Scoble called the move Payperpost but also From Marshall Kirkpatrick: "Marshall, No good deed goes unpunished, right? You may have seen that other bloggers got review machines as well. Some of that coverage was not factual. As you write your review I just wanted to emphasize that this is a review pc. I strongly recommend you disclose that we sent you this machine for review, and I hope you give your honest opinions. Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding of our intentions I'm going to ask that you either give the pc away or send it back when you no longer need it for product reviews. Thanks for your understanding, and happy reviewing, Aaron * " Mike Arrington has also published the the email that he got from Microsoft "Michael, I'm working on getting some review PCs out to community bloggers, and wanted to include you. I'd love to send you a loaded Ferrari 1000 courtesy of Windows Vista and AMD. Are you interested? This would be a review machine, so I'd love to hear your opinion on the machine and OS. Full disclosure, while I hope you will blog about your experience with the pc, you don't have to. Also, you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away to your community, or you can hold onto it for as long as you'd like. Just let me know what you plan to do with it when the time comes. And if you run into any problems let me know. A few of the drivers aren't quite final, but are very close. If you are game, would you send me your address and phone? I'm going to send this out next week, so if you will be travelling on the 22nd let me know where you'll be, and I'll send it there. Thanks, xxxxxxx" Ha ha, "hold onto it as long as you'd like..." That's funny. So where are we now? This thing is starting to feel like a PR disaster. Bloggers are starting to smell blood and this thing very well may begin to turn into yet another episode of bloggers gone wild. Scott writes: "I wonder why there was so much inconsistency regarding how the distribution of these laptops was communicated?" So while we spend the next 24 hours deciding who gets tar and feathered (Microsoft? AMD? Edelman?) I think it's important to keep a few things in mind. 1. Every PR firm that exists and every company that courts bloggers pretty much wants the same thing. To influence you. Just because this is the tech business doesn't make it any different than any other business. Why do the big pharmaceutical companies put on big conference junkets? Why do politicians get taken on private jets to play golf at fancy resorts? It is the job of a PR firm to influence bloggers. It is an interesting PR move to offer free laptops to bloggers but whether it works or not it is their job to try and influence you. 2. Giving people fast new 64 bit computers instead of software will make them have a much better experience with the computer. As I blogged yesterday, the biggest problem with Windows is the fact that it is an open system with an almost limitless number of configurations. By shipping a well tested known configuration Microsoft ups the odds that you will have a good experience on the PC rather than risk you would have a bad experience if they just sent you an upgrade disk to try and use on your crappy old Dell in the den. Because it is a 64 bit machine and a powerful one they are also hoping that you will attribute that fast new computer feel to their OS when you write about their product (as they expect you to do!). 3. Is it ethically right to accept a laptop or any other product, trip, etc.? Scoble says yes I'm still not so sure 100% on this. Would a journalist be allowed to accept a "gift" like this if they disclosed? Probably not. Would you get fired at the Los Angeles Times or the Washington Post if you took a free laptop and then wrote an article about it disclosing the fact that you got a free laptop? I'd suspect you would. But where do you draw the line? Is is a dollar line? What about meals and travel expenses? What about schwag? What if you can't afford a new computer? What if a product that you want to test isn't available for purchase yet? "Bloggers come in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of motivations. I'm a journalist by training and by profession, and that dictates my decision." Speaking of journalists, the Oh and what about the ethics of reprinting private emails? Did Scott, Mike or Marshall get permission to reprint the emails from Microsoft? Should they have gotten permission? Was it implied on the record? Interesting to see how they each handeled the email in a different way. All printed the email, but Mike xxxxx'd out the name of the sender entirely, Marshall left his first name but xxxx'd out his last name and Scott and Ed printed his name. Whatever the case, Aaron Coldiron, welcome to the blogosphere. You're going to love the new Google search results for your name in about 48 hours. Now what's that thing they like to say about herding cats?

Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection and is also the Evangelist and CEO of the photo sharing site

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