Touché
Just when I thought that the Aten Design Group took home the prize for social media tactics, new information has caused me to reconsider the verdict. Yesterday I wrote about the funeral service for Internet Explorer 6 . I praised the Aten Design Group for playing off of Google's actions to create some buzz about their company. Of course, all of this was at Microsoft's expense and they responded in classy form. (Did I just say that Microsoft did something classy? Yes, I believe I did.)
The Microsoft Blog from the Seattle P-I has reported that Microsoft sent flowers to the IE 6 funeral. The card read:
Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven.
The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft
This is such a great response on the part of Microsoft and proof that it's better to play along with social media, than it is to fight it. In the words of Nick Eaton from Seattle P-I, "Touché, Microsoft. Touché."
Comments
Agreed. Social media cannot be controlled, it's a conversation. In this case Microsoft found a way to turn bad PR into good.
Microsoft is actually quite understandably eager to see IE6 die. New versions of SharePoint won't support IE6 either. While it was useful back in 2001, it's been a source of embarrassment for them for years as a source of a lot of their security problems.
Of course, they'd like you to upgrade to IE8, which (as we all know) is bug-free and completely secure.
Still, props to MS for ever-so-slightly loosening their grip on the pretense that IE6 was ever anything other than a complete POS.
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