The Final Episode of Seinfeld

So... Microsoft clubbed Jerry Seinfeld.

That happened much faster than I thought. My friend Eric brought this up tonight at a party.

The initial focus group results must have been absolutely dismal for the Evil Empire to have dumped him that fast. I mean, they spent millions on production for these spots. And they dropped them faster than the stock market. (Quick tangent: About 20 years ago I learned about short selling and was amazed that this was even legal. Today we learn that this is one of the main reasons our financial institutions are crashing -- lousy short sellers. They come in like sharks smelling blood. They short a stock and when the price falls, they profit. Over the past few weeks these financial stocks have been easy targets for short sellers and they have driven the prices into the ground. End tangent.)

So, should Microsoft have kept Seinfeld on for a longer run? Despite my initial reaction that they should never have hired him, no. They did the right thing. If they're going to keep placing media buys, they should get a strategy that works for them. I understand they are now going to attack the Mac ads. Bad move. They need to fortify their strong holds and play them up. Don't go on the defense. Stay on offense. Aim their cannons in a different direction. (Perhaps they should aim them at the Vista product division and blow that up first.)

Matt's Recommendation to Microsoft (Bill, if you're reading, take note): If I were you I would first try and find out why your fans love Microsoft products so much and then blast that message loud and clear. This should at least stop the slide you're seeing from your brand to Mac. Then, once the bleeding is stopped, fire your product development team. Hire someone that can actually read the marketplace and do some research on trends. Find someone who will create products that are easy and enjoyable to use. Then, compensate them in a big way to create a trojan horse product that your users love and can't live without (ahem...like an ipod). Once your users are hooked on this gateway product, you can lure them into bigger and better stuff.

Or, you can sell all of your stock and by Apple (NASDQ: APPL). If there still is a stock market.

I have a friend, Curtis Morley, who knows everything. He's a total braniac. I called him the other day about how to compress a .wmv9 video to a .mov. Within a couple of minutes he had a recommendation - FFMPEG. He also had a recommendation on how to navigate around the MIT-stumping installation instructions. He said he'd post these instructions in the near future.

I joked with my wife yesterday that if I knew 10% of what Curtis knows I'd be a genius.

Thanks Curtis!

Here's his bio (which is unaltered):

Mr. Curtis Morley joined Agilix as vice president of interactive development, leading the company's interactive development efforts around BrainHoney, a web 2.0 new learning community. Mr. Morley founded mediaRAIN and musicRAIN after emerging as one of the world's leading Flash experts, ranked second on Brainbench's Macromedia Flash Certification. He has subsequently been the writer of other certifications including the most recent exam. Mr. Morley has been the technical reviewer for Flash related books and continues to receive local and national recognition for his contributions to the Flash industry. Mr. Morley received the coveted Senator Reed A. Smoot "Entrepreneur of the Year Award" from the Utah Chamber of Commence. Mr. Morley was honored in both of Utah's Business magazines, "Utah Valley Business Q" and Utah Business Magazine, as "top 40 under 40" businessman an entrepreneur.

With a desire to spread his passion an understanding, Mr. Morley became one of the first instructors to teach Flash at the collegiate level. He has taught numerous classes in Web Design, Programming, Usability, Rich Internet Applications, Business, and e-Business. Mr. Morley has taught at multiple colleges and universities. including teaching in the Masters program at the largest private university in the country. Mr. Morley sits on advisory boards for several universities and businesses.

Mr. Morley has been honored with distinguished awards including a Flash Forward Finalist Award, Macromedia site of the day, and was deemed Webby Worthy by the Webby Awards for its web-based sheet music delivery applications. mediaRAIN/musicRAIN is one of only a handful of companies in the world that are Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash Alliance partners, and assisted in the development of Flash, by being on the beta team.