Bonum Certa Men Certa

Another Pillar of the Microsoft Press Falls Over

"I'm a huge fan of guerrilla marketing."

--Joe Wilcox, Microsoft Fan



Summary: Microsoft Watch may be dead; Google carries on rising

MICROSOFT'S ability influence minds will diminish even further. Now it's Joe Wilcox who feels the anguish. He's leaving Microsoft Watch, which dumped Microsoft for Red Hat (GNU/Linux) a few years ago.

With that, there is nothing left to say but goodbye—and thank you.


Microsoft Watch is a Ziff Davis publication and we happen to have evidence to show that it sold out to Microsoft [1, 2]. Could this be the end of Microsoft Watch, which used to be Mary Jo Foley's public space? She escaped to ZDNet, but that too may be at risk of not surviving. Since they are all GNU/Linux-hostile, this is not a bad thing.

Microsoft recently cut its PR budget and together with the demise of The Seattle P-I, it all adds up to decreasing Microsoft influence (although it still owns many news networks).

Another "Microsoft Joe" (not Wilcox), who has been covering Microsoft exclusively at the Seattle P-I, no longer covers just Microsoft and right now he writes about this:

Most-Searched Term on Microsoft’s Live Search Is ... ‘Google'



Microsoft’s Live Search revamp apparently cannot come soon enough. Hitwise data shows that the most commonly searched term on Live Search over the last four weeks has been “Google,” accounting for one percent of all queries. Number two? “Yahoo.”


Google's brand has become very strong, according to this new report from the UK.

The phrase 'I'll just Google it' has helped make the Internet search giant the world's first $100billion dollar brand.

Beating out other household names, from Microsoft to Coca Cola and McDonald's, the company' value of €£68.5billion puts it 25 per cent more valuable than computer software king Microsoft.


If more people rely on the broader Web which offers a decentralised diversity of sources (e.g. using Google), then Microsoft's ability to police its image will degrade. Sadly, it can still censor blogs while the old press is dying (Newspaper Association has just gone Web-only and it's likely that everyone will, except those who fail online like Microsoft Watch).

"Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!"

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]



Related posts:

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

KillerStartups.com is an LLM Spam Site That Sometimes Covers 'Linux' (Spams the Term)
It only serves to distract from real articles
Did Microsoft 'Buy' Red Hat Without Paying for It? Does It Tell Canonical What to Do Now?
This is what Linus Torvalds once dubbed a "dick-sucking" competition or contest (alluding to Red Hat's promotion of UEFI 'secure boot')
 
Links 21/11/2024: TikTok Fighting Bans, Bluesky Failing Users
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: SpaceX Repeatedly Failing (Taxpayers Fund Failure), Russian Disinformation Spreading
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Earned Two More Honorary Doctorates Last Month
Two more doctorate degrees
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: Game Recommendations, Schizo Language
Links for the day
Growing Older and Signs of the Site's Maturity
The EPO material remains our top priority
Links 20/11/2024: Politics, Toolkits, and Gemini Journals
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: 'The Open Source Definition' and Further Escalations in Ukraine/Russia Battles
Links for the day
[Meme] Many Old Gemini Capsules Go Offline, But So Do Entire Web Sites
Problems cannot be addressed and resolved if merely talking about these problems isn't allowed
Links 20/11/2024: Standing Desks, Broken Cables, and Journalists Attacked Some More
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: Debt Issues and Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban
Links for the day
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar), Magna Carta and Debian Freedoms: RIP
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar) & Debian: from Frans Pop to Euthanasia
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
This Article About "AI-Powered" is Itself LLM-Generated Junk
Trying to meet quotas by making fake 'articles' that are - in effect - based on plagiarism?
Recognizing invalid legal judgments: rogue Debianists sought to deceive one of Europe's most neglected regions, Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Google-funded group distributed invalid Swiss judgment to deceive Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: BeagleBone Black and Suicide Rates in Switzerland
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 19, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Links 19/11/2024: War on Cables?
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/11/2024: Private Journals Online and Spirituality
Links for the day
Drew's Development Mailing Lists and Patches to 'Refine' His Attack Pieces Against the FSF's Founder
Way to bury oneself in one's own grave...
The Free Software Foundation is Looking to Raise Nearly Half a Million Dollars by Year's End
And it really needs the money, unlike the EFF which sits on a humongous pile of oligarchs' and GAFAM cash
What IBMers Say About IBM Causing IBMers to Resign (by Making Life Hard/Impossible) and Why Red Hat Was a Waste of Money to Buy
partnering with GAFAM
In Some Countries, Desktop/Laptop Usage Has Fallen to the Point Where Microsoft and Windows (and Intel) Barely Matter Anymore
Microsoft is the next Intel basically
[Meme] The Web Wasn't Always Proprietary Computer Programs Disguised as 'Web Pages'
The Web is getting worse each year
Re-de-centralisation Should Be Our Goal
Put the users in charge, not governments and corporations in charge of users
Gemini Links 19/11/2024: Rain Music, ClockworkPi DevTerm, and More
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 18, 2024