back to article Microsoft morris dancers upset Soho with Hotmail relaunch

Office drones around Soho's Golden Square have complained to the council about the racket caused by Microsoft's ongoing attempt to attract more users to Hotmail through the medium of dance. Hotmail new busy golden square Vulture Central is within spitting distance of the square where Hotmail flacks have set up shop for the …

COMMENTS

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  1. Colin Critch
    Megaphone

    Reputation

    This gives Morris Dancers a bad name! Real ones do it without a sound system or an operating system and certainly with out hotmail ( well this one does anyway).

    1. Graham Marsden
      Happy

      Although...

      ... there is usually the obligatory long drawn out chord on the Accordian to give people time to leave the area :-)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Re: Reputation

      Did they dare to dance "Beaux of London City"? (aka “Shooting”).

      Beer, for the obvious reason.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    sounds

    given that Golden square is home to a lot of televison and film post production companies where sound is very important, anyone making a racket in the square outside will be very unloved!

  3. StooMonster
    Pint

    Wrong square

    So, people "eat their macrobiotic lunches" in Golden Square? Perhaps Microsoft should've gone over to Soho Square instead, where the lunchtime air is usually thick with the smell of herbal cigarettes; and one can nip over to The Toucan for a Guinness.

  4. Joe K
    Thumb Down

    What a waste of money

    How much do you think all this horseshit cost, both in implementation and the months of meetings in the agency to decide what bullshit to throw on the London streets?

    Makes me near sob it does, with all the cuts going on in the IT world.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Double standards

    Why didn't this mob get arrested along with everyone at Parliament Square?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Meh

    I used to work on Golden Square, shame I don't any more, could have thrown things out of the windows at them. What utter fail.

  7. GeorgeTuk
    FAIL

    Uninterrupted concentration...

    ...but still manages to break to use Twitter?

    Classic "I am so busy and important" office moment.

    Like the office manager here who was too busy to meet the recruitment team and spent the next two hours setting up a Facebook account...she is working her notice now.

    1. Skipraider

      The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

      One could argue that the concentration had already been broken and that the tw@tter post was a result of frustration at not being able to maintain concentration.

      I doubt it though.

  8. SlabMan

    Great campaign

    Very effective. I enjoyed it so much that I plan to open several dozen Hotmail accounts, set up an 'on holiday' message on each, and then cc them all with a celebratory message.

  9. Benny

    Slightly OT

    but is that a foam resistor at the bottom of that second picture?!

    1. Alice Andretti

      Resistor or maybe yarn

      "is that a foam resistor at the bottom of that second picture?!"

      That's what I thought at first too, which would be an interesting marketing angle, but now it's starting to look more like a small skein of yarn (still with the wrapper on, like some people keep them) with some knitting needles or something stuck in the middle. I can't make the picture go larger though, to see for sure, aside from zoom which doesn't do much (pixelated).

      I like the resistor idea better :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Outgeeked..

        Surely it can't be a resistor, there's no colour bands to indicate the value, my money's on an open wound bobbin axial inductor.. Or a skein of wool but I know which idea I prefer

        1. Alice Andretti

          Models often omit details

          "Surely it can't be a resistor, there's no colour bands to indicate the value"

          Yeah, but *if* it was a foam model of a resistor, as an earlier poster suggested (at least I thought that's what they meant), the creator of such an object likely wouldn't have been concerned about accurate detail and instead would have focused on just making a vague representation of the general shape of the object - just enough for people to kinda-sorta recognize it.

          You know, like how casual artists and quasi-modelers often depict popular musical stringed instruments with the wrong number of strings (usually far too few, because it's easier to draw that way, and/or because the artist is ignorant) and the frets in the wrong places or missing altogether, bridge in the wrong place, etc. Or like how cartoon characters only have 3 fingers. It isn't accurate, but people can tell what it's supposed to be. (The lack of accuracy in musical-instrument drawings is one of my pet peeves.)

          I still think it's yarn though :)

  10. yossarianuk
    Linux

    Do people still use hotmail?

    Why would anyone in their right mind still be using hotmail?

    Its so much slower in every respect to gmail - also if you running in Linux you seem to have to run the 'basic' version.

    Does hotmail have https support yet ? Does it have a good way of searching your messages (i.m guessing not judging the state of windows search tools even in its Vista2 (windows7)

    i'm guessing all those Windows users who automatically get sent to msn (and thus hotmail adverts) may have an impact...

  11. Mike Flugennock
    FAIL

    Jeezus, they never learn, do they?

    Jesus H. Bicycle-Riding Christ.

    You'd think that by now -- especially after that video came out of those retail drones and their "spontaneous" line dancing at a Microsoft Store in a shopping mall -- that their every attempt to be "cool" with their marketing just makes them look sillier.

    C'mon, Microsoft, take a chance and quit while you're ahead (sort of).

    1. Roger Greenwood
      Happy

      er . . .they are not anymore

      Ahead, that is.

      As of today, Apple is a bigger company than Microsoft (only just) i.e. market worth. Amazing really (and I mean that both are so big).

      Disclaimer :- I don't buy products or services from either.

  12. Mac605
    Thumb Down

    Morrisdancers

    Morrisdancers were at least hearable, but just before them "something" that tried to play something was a disaster... oversteering and terrible sound quality wat their mark.

  13. Badwolf
    Paris Hilton

    Tough job

    I'd rather attempt to plug the oil spill in the gulf with a lump of Blutack than try to make Microsoft look 'cool'

  14. yossarianuk

    @Mike Flugennock

    Microsoft have never been ahead in anything except being an charge of an illegal monopoly.

    I agree they should quit now though...

  15. Xaviar Onassis
    Grenade

    Hula Hoops

    Canary Wharf event seems to have started. So far there's been one man with a hula hoop outside the main Jubilee station entrance. Luckily the sound doesn't reach the 18th floor...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    MS = Very very clever,...

    No such thing as "bad press", there is a lot of exposure here for MS because of this "scandal".

  17. Chronos
    Coat

    Where are the Vikings?

    "Spam, spam, wonderful spam!"

    1. Number6

      Fish Dance

      If we're going Python, surely the fish slapping dance is more appropriate here. No convenient canal, but if you hit them hard enough they should stay down and quiet.

  18. Graham Bartlett

    In other news

    Given his user name, Chris Applegate needs to ease off on the Neal Stephenson habit...

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