What I find interesting about Microsoft's new series of ads is that they focus on hardware, not on software. Microsoft isn't comparing Windows with OS X, but Dells and HPs versus Macintosh computers.

Whine from Peter Cohen Vinyards

On April 14th, 2009 mrtoner says:

Peter's rant/whine about the MacHeist Twitterblast is ludicrous and disingenuous. For example:

"...arbitrarily spamming me so you can get something for free..." -- it's not spam. You not only agreed to receive messages from the people that you follow, but the presumption is that you're following them because you're interested in what they're interested in. If you're not interested, then unfollow!

"I didn't solicit MacHeist to bother me" -- MacHeist didn't send the message. Your friends, the people you're following did. You solicited messages from them and you're getting exactly what you asked for.

"...I don't want to see MacHeist's tweets hijacking other people's accounts." -- their accounts weren't hijacked. The people who you chose to follow signed in to their own Twitter accounts and posted a message, a message you agreed to receive.

"Tapping into somebody's greed is an easy way to get them to do a stupid thing." -- so if you've got greedy friends, then unfollow.

"I follow each of those people because something in their profile interested me or something they said entertained me..." -- and you think that you won't every once in a while get something from them that doesn't interest or entertain you? Are you going to gripe when they say something else that doesn't entertain or interest you?

"If you don't want that advertising [from Maworld.com e-mail] you can opt out of it...I don't have that option on Twitter." -- sure you do! It's called canceling your Twitter account. Might seem a lttile drastic, but no more so than canceling my print Macworld subscription because I don't like the advertising. Or avoiding Macworld.com because I don't like the advertising.

Sure, you'll say "But that's different, because I didn't agree to receive advertising." Yes you did. You agreed to receive all messages from people you follow, regardless of whether or not you're interested in any specific message. Your problem is that a high percentage of them were interested in MacHeist. That's not MacHeist's fault nor the fault of those you're following, so quit your whining!