I am nonplussed by the new Microsoft ads. Here is Grant's take. (The second one is on the youtubes now as well.) I love his blog, and agree with the analysis, but I think what's going on here is exactly the problem.

The I'm-a-Mac ads communicate one thing, the "unique value proposition" in marking lingo: that Macs are better. They do this even at the expense of playing into the negative meanings that have been attached to their brand: smug, effete, elitist.

I think real people actually care more if their computer works or not. Which might be why those spots have been successful with my generation: it's cool to not look like a hipster, but it's even cooler not to care if you do or not because you are too busy actually contributing something to the universe.

Instead of being able to ignore their brand's "meaning" because they have facts to do the selling, the Seinfeld/Gates spots are entirely meaning. Brilliantly orchestrated meaning, original and not saddled by the old brand, but who cares? I heard Microsoft finally gave up on the platform that evolved from DOS to Vista and wrote a compatible replacement from scratch. With an elegant design, all managed code, perhaps even written in F#, whatever. Maybe they actually did. So what?

While they slowly wake up and figure out how to make something of those theoretical improvements, actual human beings will be throwing out their PCs and buying Macs. I welcome this, as a free software hacker, because I much prefer competing against something subjectively better (for, you know, real users) and unix-compatible than something subjectively worse and completely brain-damaged. We did that in the 90's; I think we're done.

(Also, Mark Shuttleworth is quite enthusiastic about catching up on that "subjective" front. I myself tend to avoid user interfaces, so I can't really speak to it.)