Hamster's Lunch at Coco's in Los Angeles
(Click on image to biggify)
You'd be forgiven for mistaking the Hamster's Lunch as a lunch for hamsters. No, it's intended for human consumption. You can buy a box at Coco's in Los Angeles, where nearly every product on display includes a helpful explanatory note.
Hamster's Lunch $4.45
Rice crackers and a hyper realistic, mercilessly charming hamster figure.
Note: We would like to thank Microsoft Windows Mobile for sponsoring mobile posting on Boing Boing. In the coming weeks, we'll be using the system to post audio, images, text, and video.
Here's a little more information about the sponsorships and ads on Boing Boing:
-- Boing Boing's been running ads for years. It's a little surprising that so many readers are only just now realizing it.
-- This kind of sponsorship -- in the immediate case, Microsoft Windows Mobile -- is structurally no different from sponsorships and ads Boing Boing's done in the past.
-- In fact, Hewlett-Packard sponsored a series of audio posts just last year, no one made a fuss about them, and they certainly didn't affect what appears in Boing Boing (aside from allowing some of it to be an audio feed).
-- In further fact, this kind of advertising and sponsorship has also been going on for some time now in many other major weblogs. We repeat: it's a little surprising that so many readers are only just now realizing it.
-- The presence of major advertisers and major advertising campaigns on high-traffic weblogs is not evidence of a conspiracy to somehow buy off the online audience. Those high-end ad campaigns exist because the weblog-reading audience is now large enough to compete with old-media advertising venues like print magazines.
-- Finally, and most importantly, no advertising or sponsorship has ever had any effect on Boing Boing's content or editorial policies, nor will it influence them in the future. Our editorial content is completely independent of our advertising.
I hope that answers your questions. Thank you for reading Boing Boing!
-- Mark Frauenfelder
lol! start the slag fest. Let me be the first to say, Microsoft Windows Mobile makes me feel icky!
I'll pile on; and that Microsoft Windows Mobile tag and link are gross.
Mercilessly charming. Best description Ever.
P.S. I'm not digging the Windows ad.
I purchased a Hamster's Lunch several years ago. The snack was not especially good. However, the sleeping hamster toy I got was hilarious.
I have to strongly agree. The stuff with Honda was one thing. Honda isn't often featured here on BoingBoing, and when it is, it is usually a neat ad or robot or something else incidental to their main business.
Having content directly sponsored by Microsoft undermines the credibility of this blog and everyone who posts on it. Microsoft is a big company, known for throwing its weight around. It competes heavily in several areas that this blog often comments on.
it is going to be very hard to take the next iPod review or Apple news seriously when it comes with a 'This post sponsored by Microsoft' label attached. Same goes for anything involving Wii or PS3 news. Or Mobile phone news. Or anything involving Linux devices. Or DRM news. Or Google news.
If they want to run ads, fine, let them buy ad space. Directly sponsoring posts of any sort is a much more questionable connection. If the site needs money badly enough to NEED this type of partnership, then how am I supposed to believe that the reporting will remain unbiased towards whoever is holding the purse strings?
ok... place your bets now on how long it will be until M$ moves to buy out BoingBoing.
Why biggify when you can embiggen? I expect more cromulence from BoingBoing. Come on!
I prefer Honda to Microsoft, but this still ain't my personal blog. Set up another down here, would ya?!
I didn't taste the Hamster's Lunch, but the Coco's proprietor claims it's quite tasty.
Somebody set up us another down here?
I remember similar mewling when MS threw a little money (well, little by their standards, it was about $150 million or so, I think) Apple's way. I mean, what, they bought you a few smartphones or something? Hell, they used to throw a big shindig for mobile device bloggers every year, giving them smartphones and all kinds of neat schwag, and the world didn't end. We'll see if it affects your reporting, though.
For what it's worth -- I almost never click on webads, but I was just talking about the Mobile Web during lunch, so the link turned out to be very useful!
I hope MS paid you enough for 100 more years of Boingboing ;)
Being sponsored by Microsoft does seem to be antithetical to BB's stance on the Free/Open Source Software community and openness in general.
Makes it difficult to post about freeing software when the next or previous post is sponsored by MS, doesn't it?
What I wouldn't give to be mercilessly charming...
MERCILESSLY CHARMING
MS? Huh? Sponsored posts are a big turn off.
windows mobile ad is lame... hope you're making boucoup bucks, in which case well played
not cool Zeus, not cool.
Trust, especially when it comes to reviews and editorials, has to be earned on an individual basis. As someone who has enjoyed visiting and reading boingboing for the past several years, Mark et al. have earned my trust by being honest, earnest, and passionate. IF at some point in the future, a major conflict of interest emerges, ala the GameSpot debacle, that trust will be lost, and I will find other ways to waste time.
In the meantime, if folks here are super upset about the corporate sponsorships, maybe we can organize a "Community Sponsored" tag, for posts that receive the most "Favorite This!" votes? I don't have enough money to pay for ads on the site, but I'd chip in a few bucks for particularly awesome posts. YTMND does this, for example.
GameSpot ref:
(http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/03/exclusive-gertsmann-speaks-about-kandl-review-future/)
If BoingBoing needs money, how about putting up a message board, ala SomethingAwful or Metafilter? I've paid for those, and I think a BoingBoing community would be a great addition.
Also, the only way to cure the ick of a MS sponsored post is to do a critical review of an MS product. The sooner the better. I have no problems with advertisements or sponsorship unless they legitimately start to make me question the objectivity of the editorial content.
OK, OK then: "BILL GATES IS AN ASSHOLE"
"MICROSOFT SUCKS"
....no,nothing yet.......
I'll keep checking for you periodically.
This comment brought to you by Microsoft, Shell, and the Nine Circles of Hell.
I'm not at all a Microsoft hater, but this is getting ridiculous guys. Comments sponsored by HP. Categories sponsored by Honda. Posts sponsored by Microsoft. Boing Boing looks like a frigging NASCAR, and it's a big turnoff for me. I appreciate the need to pay bandwidth bills, but I don't think this particular way of going about it is working out very well.
maybe they are boring from within
Please ditch the Microsoft sponsorship. It buggles my head.
all this generalized griping about Microsoft is pretty rude, you guys.
on the other hand, Windows Mobile as a specific product actually sucks. I had a Motorola Q and returned it as quickly as possible. terrible interface, frequent glitches, poor system performance and generally horrible usability. not just the motorola design, but using the Windows taskbar metaphor on a mobile screen is a bad, bad idea. switched to a Palm and life got better.
that said, BB's tendency in recent years to latch on and obsessively repeat some concept until they've run it into the ground is longstanding, might as well make some money from it. mashups, katamari, gama-go, steampunk, windows mobile... whatever. the value here is always in the incidentals.
I for one welcome our Redmond Ovwerlords. Khakis and Xunes for everyone!
OK, other than some new ads and sponsor-bashing that's going on here, I really don't detect any effect on the substantive quality of the Boing Boing posts. There are better and bigger things to whine about, people...
I think it's a joke. Surely it's a joke? This is a renowned haunt of freetards, and frankly that's the only reasonable explanation. Looking forward to Cory getting back from paternity leave and having a good laugh about both the Honda and Microsoft gags.
Suckers!
You realize, of course, that this means Windows 7 is actually going to be called "Microsoft! Windows! BoingBoing!" ...
Children, Children. Please stop the tantrums. I have worked with just about every OS available for the past three decades and most of the hardware. There just ain't that much difference. Certainly not enough to justify these temper tantrums. Face it, some people actually like Microsoft and their products. That doesn't make them inferior or evil. Good lord, it's a tool. Use one. Don't be one!
Windows advertising?!?!?! Filth! May the Flying Spaghetti Monster have mercy on your souls! I am considering a boingboing boycott now.
1) I'm all for BoingBoing getting loot, it's perfectly clear that you all hustle and supply us with amazing free content on a daily basis.
2) I've got no problems with the Honda sponsorship at all. Anyone that takes issue with it should read Joel Johnson's response in the comment thread (it's succinct, sincere and bad-ass - kudos Joel).
3) I do take issue with BoingBoing being affiliated with Microsoft for two reasons as listed below.
- BoingBoing has frequently been critical of MS in the past, either their DRM, delays/flaws of Windows and (I believe, though I haven't checked the archives) some humorous bits about Bill Gates appearing in Teen Beat and Steve Ballmer going apeshit on stage at a MS rally.
- Having used Windows Mobile in the past as well, I have to concur with previous posters, that it truly is horrible. Since when does BoingBoing support anything horrible other than Goatse?
I have the utmost faith in all of the BoingBoing team that they will continue to stick to their guns and post whatever the hell they want (and we love) and I recognize that ad sales and editorial are suppose to be separated like church and state, but this sponsorship still represents a bit of a slippery slope for me.
Regardless, I've still got love for BoingBoing and if this is what it takes to keep your babies momma happy and the tax man at bay - then I guess that's just how it goes.
Yup. MS sponsored Boing Boing posts make me feel squicky too.
Why the sudden burst of corporateness Boinge Boinge?
Unless I see any actual impact on content I'm not going to bitch about the sponsorships. If money from ads allows boingboing to continue to exist, and those who make it to be able to afford to continue to do what they do then I say go for it.
Of course I can't even see most of the ads anyways thanks to adblock plus...
I am also guessing that the note at the bottom is not going to be on every post that is made using windows mobile, just the first.
Hint: Use Firefox and the Adblock Plus extension... zappo! No more HP, MS, or Honda ads.
Does microsoft actually expect positive feedback from the readers of this blog? Little nutty, methinks.
About the regular, old ads... they don't work, people, let's face it. The more tools we come up to block advertisement, the more agressive the companies get.
I don't give a damn about who advertises here, and I trust the bb staff to be too smart to jeopardize their content. It's the only thing they got.
Very funny. I'm not believing the Microsoft sponsorship for a second. What next? "Know your neighbor" PSA's from DHS? Anti-piracy ads from the MPAA?
i don't have anything new to add, just wanted to be another voice questioning this new sponsorship. i'd hate to use a mean word like sellout to describe one of my favorite websites, but MS sponsorship does reek of compromised values...
The problem that I have with the MS sponsonship is that (as mentioned a few times above) MS Mobile is bad bad tech. I understand the need to pay for the site, and make some cash from your efforts. However, the reason people like myself visit this site is because I trust your opinions on what is fun and cool and as a result most of the things you post i find interesting.
So, if you are going to sell out, then please sell out selectively. Try at least to get sponsors of products that aren't the exact opposite of what this site is about. (ie new innovative and interesting vs poorly implemented, me-too and buggy)
so sad.
No Honda or MS vibes so far.
What the heck, I'll join the chorus of those grousing about the Microsoft sponsorship. Here's hoping that it's money wasted on their part.
For what it's worth, MS is also the top sponsor of OSCON 2008, but as far as I know that hasn't changed the conference's scope and intent in any meaningful way.
If the Microsoft sponsorship is here to stay, can we please have Microsoft sponsor Cory's long delayed "Switching to Ubuntu" post?
Oh thank you, thank you Windows Mobile, for allowing me to see a blurry camera phone photo of hamster-related human food the instant it was taken, rather than forcing me to wait until the person who snapped the photo got back to home/office. I don't know what I'd do without you, Windows Mobile, you are quickly beginning to replace air and water.
Unless all you guys are going to start chipping in to support BoingBoing and keep it up and running (I'm talking to you, people who paid all of $0 for In Rainbows), just move along and let the rest of us get on with our hamster love.
You don't even need AdBlock if you're surfing with Firefox and NoScript (and if you aren't why aren't you? Do you like being vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks?)
I'm not running AdBlock, and have been wondering if the "sponsorship" means anything, because I don't see any ads other than the one for FM at the top right of every page. NoScript is currently blocking... four sites, and frequently is blocking ten or more, so I guess that most of the ads are being delivered via javascript from other servers.
A small number of print publications have been able to keep their integrity regardless of ad dollars, and there is no reason why boingboing won't be able to do so despite taking money from a monopolistic producer of crapware that is currently trying to push an arguably unimplementable standard (OOXML) down the world's collective throat via a standards body that seems to me to have been packed at the last minute with bought-and-paid-for Microsoft shills.
Do all products running Mobile Windows take shitty pictures?
Sponsoring Boing Boing seems like a poor decision on Microsoft's part. All it's doing is making everybody pissed at them. And everybody's making fun of their product too. Negative attention all around.
A Windows sponsorship REALLY worries me in light of BoingBoing's MS coverage in the past
According to search engines, there are 2,380 articles on BB about Microsoft; few of them are positive and many are critical of DRM and IP positions.
Will we now see less criticism from boingboing?
Will boingboing decline to run certain articles at all?
Will there only be no 'mobile posts' of articles critical of MS as well? ( ie, no mobile posts of an anti MS DRM rally )?!?
I think I seriously might need to start reading other blogs for tech 'news' from now on -- taking sponsorship cash from a company you've been highly critical of in the past raises serious ethics concerns.
When i subscribed to the BoingBoing lauded 'Make' magazine, and started to get nonstop snail-mail spam, I was angered -- I signed up for that magazine, because the journal with strong online privacy concerns gave it amazing reviews. Then I found out my personal information was sold or rented.
A MS partnership for most other sites would not be an issue - but with BoingBoing's history of MS coverage... this is just above and beyond acceptable.
I guess everyone sells out eventually. Please tell us you're fucking with us.
TOM -- I'll have to check out NoScript ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722 ).
I really wasn't sure what all the fuss was about with the ads, so I checked out the site in IE... yoiks! I had no idea there were that many ads on this site.
Having used Firefox with some sort of ad-blocker extension for at least the last 2 years, it amazes me that so many boingboing readers are _not_ using such technology (either NoScript or AdBlock.)
Doesn't the clutter drive you guys nuts? Also, your download speeds would increase dramatically without all those ad javascripts and images.
The Microsoft "Map-It" link does not work on Safari, Apple's Mac OS X browser.
BoingBoing: the "Map-It' link is useless for Safari users. This lack of function alone should be reason for BoingBoing ceasing using this Microsoft service. The near-certainty that the site was explicitly engineered to not to work when linked from Safari, for craven corporate profit-oriented reasons, is apalling.
Worse, the result of clicking on the "Map-It"
doesn't even tell you your attempt to view the location in the link has failed, instead leaves you vaugely confused. Safari 3.0.4 on OS X 10.4.11 produces the from the 210 character link. not anything anything about the actual location, or even remnants of the address, or city, we only see "Cocos' in a confusing box:
===============
Live Local Search beta
______________________
[an empty text entry field]
____________Coco's
[_another_ text entry field, with pre-entered text "Coco's"]
[button with magnifying-glass icon]
[row of navigation tabs]
Please type one or more search terms into the box and then click Search.
=======
Microsoft must have worked pretty hard to form a link + web site that works fine on Firefox, but which produces such a bizarre, useless, and confusing result on Safari. _Two_ text fields, one unlabeled, one barely labeled with an icon. Wow, just shoddy work. And the provided instructions don't even tell you which of these two mysterious boxes you should type in! Gah! If this is not intentional, then at the very least we can say that MS never tested this once on Safari -- strikes me as petty, ignorant, and not a little mean-spirited.
Heh, I just saw this. I was wondering why someone came over to Gadgets asking me if Microsoft was advertising over there, too. (For the record I checked and they are. It's for Home Server, though, not Winmo.)
Story time! The very first week I took over Gizmodo I posted direct links to some images of a woman riding a homebrew bike-powered dildo. (If came up through the seat, if you must know.) Microsoft had just done the biggest ad buy on Gizmodo that Gawker had ever had. I found out later that day -- something like Day 5 of my new job -- that Microsoft pulled the ad buy.
A year later, after Gizmodo was gaining real traction, they invited me to interview Bill Gates one-on-one at CES.
Point is, Microsoft, just like all companies, just wants to go where the customers are. And speaking just for myself, I have no problem taking their money to pay my bills as long as they don't expect me to censor or change my opinion about them or, you know, anything.
I think it's totally reasonable to bristle at Microsoft in particular, though. They've been stupendous dickbags in the past. They also have made plenty of totally decent software and hardware, but still I understand why many people aren't fans. (And Windows Mobile is my least favorite mobile OS, despite all its potential. I love that it's easy to put any software on there you want, but the last thing I want on a tiny phone is a tiny version of Windows. If they gave the whole thing a new interface once-over it would help a lot.)
Microsoft is beyond criticism, for sure. If they want to give me money for an ad I don't have a problem with it (and I hope you'd understand why even if you wouldn't make the same decision), but you guys should feel comfortable speaking your piece in the comments as long as you can keep it civil. (More civil than "dickbags" probably!)
As per usual, just speaking for myself!
The link doesn't work in Camino either. Sponsorship is one thing, but I would expect you guys to know better than to embrace technology that sucks. Give Microsoft their money back and replace the link with a Google Maps one that actually works!
Joel, if they kept it civil, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Here we go again ...
Civil.
Hokay, hows about this: don't write anything you wouldn't say to someone's face?
Comments are temporarily turned off while I clean up in here.
I don't suppose any of you citizens have noticed that this is NOT the first time a company has sponsored audio posting on Boing Boing?
Face forward, pilgrims.
Comments are back on. The previous thread still exists, but portions of it are going to be cleaned up. Most of it should eventually reappear. In the meantime, please note Mark Frauenfelder's official statement, which has been appended to the main entry.
Thanks!
way too polite.
Well, allrighty then! Just so long as you promise to have a secret voodoo doll of Gates that you take out every night and singe a little with a soldering iron.
Just to make sure.
Cory will still be posting his long awaited review of Ubuntu?
Takuan, I'm a Mac head who's sometimes been forced to use Windows at work. I've been sticking pins in my Bill Gates poppet for ages.
EX-cellent
http://www.margaretcusack.com/section_soft/images/soft_right/gates_rightop.jpg
I should say that, as a Windows Mobile user myself, I think the whole idea of Microsoft sponsoring content created with the aid of mobile devices is actually pretty cool. What irks me, though, is that the link at the bottom of the post leads to a broken page for users of Safari and Camino, which is an unfortunate side-effect of the sponsorship. Which is not BoingBoing's fault for agreeing to have the link placed there; it's Microsoft's fault for writing bad code. But then, what else is new?
"...by taking the time answer a few questions, you can help us ensure that the sponsors we select match your preferences. (We have a policy of only taking "wonderful" advertisers in any case!)."
Quote by Mark Frauenfelder, August 12, 2004 2:01 PM
note quotes
From Note: "In the coming weeks, we'll be using the system to post audio, images, text, and video."
I can accept Mark's statements that BoingBoing's accepting sponsorship from large companies, including Microsoft, will not affect editorial content.
But in that case: please don't use this sponsor's Map-It links until they work on Safari (Apple's Mac OS X web browser). I don't remember BoingBoing containing technical Mac barriers in the past. Every other major online map service's links work fine with Safari. At the very least, provide one of those beneath the Map-It link.
It would be disappointing to see BoingBoing reduce the usefulness of their own site's links in order to please a sponsor. I really hope I don't see weeks of "Mobile Posts" containing the only map-links I've encountered in years that do not work on Safari.
Just a technical note: The Map-It link works fine with Firefox in Ubuntu. Obviously, it ought to work in Safari as well.
I'm turning in. It's 0140 here, and I'm fried. Don't anyone set off explosives until I get back.
****** (quoi?...... fetchez la vache!)*******
Doesn't everyone use some kind of AdBlock / JunkBuster?
Download Privoxy if you don't.
I bet you silly people complain about spam emails too.
But whatever the rest of you are complaining about, I don't see it. That's why the web is setup as a paradigm of "You send me the data, but I decide how to view it."
Although one day all this JavaScript/AJAX stuff is going to completely ruin the web. Never forget that the web is fundamentally all about hyperlinks, not "web apps".
hmm.. I don't disagree with the need for ads. Gotta pay the rent and all. But along the lines of #8, it seems like the ads are not from 'wonderful advertisers' so much anymore. Having read BB for a long time now, I am so used to the ads being from cool companies doing cool stuff (generally). With the honda and hp stuff, i was kinda irked, but the MS thing definitely pushed me over the edge (enough to comment anyway :-)
Also, when i see a banner ad on the top of the page, or on the sidebar, i don't think of it really as an endorsement, it is just and ad served up by some server. But when i see "this post sponsored MS Mobile" i take that as you guys saying to me the reader: hey MS Mobile is great! Now, MS might make some good stuff, but the Mobile product line aint it. (having used it myself) So then i think" if they are willing to pimp MS mobile, are they willing to pimp anything? should I expect to see 'this post brought to you by the MPAA'.
Anyhow, sorry to get so long in the post here, but i really really like BB, and change is inevitable, but i always kinda hoped it wouldn't change to be more like the 'other major weblogs', and might try to keep some of it's uniqueness.
For years now in Japan, you can also get a Penguin's Lunch. Here's a checklist:
Penguins lunch
They're still on sale at the aquarium in Matsushima.
With all the freedoms Microsoft has seized from the computing public, and all the companies they have destroyed, I'd be wary of taking their filthy money.
Also, they released Windows Vista, the coup de grace.
I've only just realized that some of the content I might be reading on Boingboing is actually an advertisement.
I might have been living under a rock, but that doesn't make me less uncomfortable with this.
Honoustly, a large site like Boingboing that lives ONLY from its content doesn't really have to infect that content with advertisements, does it?
At least for me, I will now be more cautious when visiting bb. Also, thanks for ruining the idea that bb knows what it's doing.
A lot of BB is ad-heavy and has been for a long time. That's not a good argument for adding MORE ads, and ads at the top and bottom of an otherwise normal BB post. Would Mark or other BB posters really have added a giant Microsoft map link to any post if MS weren't paying big bucks? No, they probably wouldn't have. That right there blows Mark's PR-style defense of the ads out of the water. MS sponsorship DID affect the content, and in ways that, as far as I can tell, hasn't happened at BB before.
Why is there a sudden need by BB to expand advertising even further, anyway? Just need more money? Has running BB gotten more expensive? I mean, BBtv has its own sponsors, which is fine, so that can't be costing much, can it?
bb just jumped the shark.
I mean, really - Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, a DRM pushing dinosaur, the epitomy of anti-cool anti-fun blockheads. The fact I even have to post this makes me really really sad. Time to find another well as this one is poisoned. I won't be waiting around for the Exxon and MPAA/RIAA ads.
There is such a thing as ethics, bb. shame on you.
I feel kinda bad for Coco's and the Hamster's Lunch guys. Here is their big BB break, and they unwittingly get upstaged by being sponsored by MS.
If my "cool" stuff ever made it's way to a maker faire or some other BB-type gathering and made the website, I sure hope it wouldn't be sponsored by MS, since that would suck all the coolness from the main content.
As for the original post, i think the hamster is cool (and very cute), and I also wonder what is on the shelf below? is it a monkey of some sort?
I have no problem with sponsorship at all. I have had no problem with the sponsorship (that I've noticed) on here, either.
I thought the wording of the "Note: We would like to thank" was highly obnoxious and counter to the entire BoingBoing atmosphere. It's like opening up your favorite magazine and finding a pleasant little thank you to Microsoft Word for allowing an article to be written.
First of all, Microsoft Windows Mobile is a product, not a person, you can't thank it. Second, congratulations on suddenly gaining the ability to blog with mobility. Maybe you could put that in a separate post, explaining that blogging capabilities will be handled with Windows Mobile, rather than giving MS a big ol' smooch on the butt right smack in the middle of the post content?
The thing about web advertising is, when it's done what I would consider to be correctly, you can ignore it. It's easy to ignore that [lame] little Windows Mobile badge at the bottom of the article. It's insulting to have such a "Thank you" statement stuck right in the middle of the post's content. Bad form.
So what, our comments all got deleted?
Mine said, for the record, that I thought this was a joke, and that the BB crew would wait for Cory to come back from paternity to set us all straight.
Still think that, there's no way that this renowned home for freetards would go this route. And y'all are suckers for believing otherwise, whatever "clarification" gets issued..
Re: The MapLink
I can confirm: (YMMV)
Safari OSX - doesn't work
FireFox OSX - doesn't work
Safari Windows (OSX/Parallels) - doesn't work
InternetExplorer (OSX/Parallels) - works
S H O D D Y .
I just got up and it seems I missed something. Ah well, ... I think that Mark Frauenfelders handling of the Windows Mobile sponsorship was a bit cack-handed but thats part of the charm of Boing Boing. Its run pretty well but none of the contributers are cynical hacks with some Rupert Murdoch figure breathing down their necks looking at the bottom line. Also this blog is by far the biggest in the "blogospehere" (ahem). Way bigger than all the rest. Its inevitable that Mark et al will want to share in its success beyond getting a pat on the back from their friends. How are they going to share in its success unless they have some form of advertising or sponsorship? Getting sponsored by 'Als natural grain store' isn't going to pay the bills or keep Corey in nappies. I could go on but I get the feeling that this has already been run over. Feel free to delete this post THN if its all old stuff.
About the difference in a sponsorship by HP or Microsoft:
- one of them is a closed system
- one of them tried to buy Yahoo and already owns quite some parts of the web
- one of them has been sued more than once for forcing their way of making software on others
- one of them does develop drivers for open source systems
A lot of posts on Boingboing are about net neutrality, and how important it is to maintain this. Corporate internet is a reality and certain firms are less open than others. By choosing your sponsors, you as Boingboing are not neutral and innocent..
I for one will not for example work for an oil firm or Microsoft, because of my principles.
It seems to be a thin line that has been crossed. but the line is there (and the ads used to be on one side of Boingboing blog, seems that they have crossed a graphical line too).
I totally love Boingboing, for the information about my rights as a internet user/surfer/content maker. But...
As a totally free sofware mademoiselle, I'm having a hard time with this.
I already weighed in on the ingrained advertising over in the Honda post. I just want to know if there are different Hamsters in every box.
I don't have a problem with this decision right now. I do want to note one thing though. Every TV station, every radio station, every newspaper and every cable channel says it's advertisers have no effect on editorial policies. We are completely independent they say. Our advertisers do not control the content of our media publication.
But it does, we all know it does. Not at first of course but slowly and over time it does have an effect.
I wish BB loaded easier on my windows mobile phone.
Principles are great, but a hacked iPhone's not in my cards.
BB hasn't jumped squat.
Folks, please ... entitlement, much? This is not our house. We come here a-visiting. BB staff don't come round our house and give out about the new picture on our wall. Let's be curteous. And let our brilliant hosts decorate their house the way they want to.
No matter how very MUCH we despise MS. That's not the point here. Hm?
*ducks*
I think Panda hit the nail on the head in #15.
I don't have a problem with advertising, and don't have a problem with BoingBoing's choice of sponsors. The problem is *how* the advertising has been presented recently.
There's a big difference between an ad appearing alongside an article and the article itself containing a "this posting is brought to you by..." message. It's a dangerous blurring of advertising and editorial content. Personally, I trust BoingBoing's writers not to be influenced by ad partners, but the new acknowledgements *look* bad.
How about simply running ads next to articles without mentioning them in the text? Alternatively, if you particularly want to acknowledge sponsors, how about doing so in standalone postings, rather than in postings about other subjects?
Well, blogs are still strange creatures. Some of us do no more trust official news sources, since their contents are nowadays polluted and contaminated by advertiser.
Blogs were supposed to be immune from this kind of servitude, but things are changing also with this "medium".
When blogging becomes a full time job, you are supposed to be paid for it. But money DO affects the content creations.
Now, BB may assure us that the money they are taking from M$ will not affect their contents, and probably they really believe that.
But truth is, the money has already found a subconscious path in their brain. They won't be supporters of M$ of any of the other sponsores, but their judgment has already been affected.
Post will be less aggressive, less sarcastic, less... something else. They won't do that on purpose, but they'll do it, soon or later, even if they themselves don't like the advertisers.
It's only a matter of time, than blogs (not only BB) will be stylistically different from newspapers, they will be more appealing, more friendly. But will they be still trust-able?
I just want to put back here that Microsoft often act like pretentious dickbags. Dickbags, I tell you! I run Vista and love my Xbox 360, though, so sometimes they make a good product. Well, not Vista. (Although it's not as horrendous as some make it out to be.)
Anyway: dickbags.
Sidestepping the issue of how advertising is handled, I'm wondering (as a Windows Mobile user) how exactly the platform is enabling posts like this.
Much as I find the platform useful, support for blogging has always come from third-party apps, most of which have a skeletal, cobbled-together feel. At present, I'm using MobiBlogr, which is pretty good, but with the map link here, I gather Mark is using something else.
Anyone have any insight into what's powering these mobile posts?
#34 Interesting question.
I've use a windows mobile phone to try to post to my wordpress blog before and it was complete crap. In fact, it had a hard time displaying quite a number of web pages because the browser wasn't implemented well at all.
However I chucked that brick at a wall and got an iphone and can post to my blog as much as I please now. It displays web pages no problem! Cookies? Yes! Bank web sites? Yep. But that shitty windows phone, woof. It had all the bells and wistles too. In fact, if the actual phone had linux or android on it, I'd still be using it.
And don't even start talking about trying to get the damn thing to sync with my mac!
Crap!
Look what that little hamster made me do! Made me view the BB webs all without my adblocks! I was UNPROTECTED THERE! For a while! At least!
Mass deletion is bad form, dudes. And having running in the posts really eats at your credibility.
Link works fine in Firefox here. Side note: Safari is an awful browser.
Apple is just Microsoft with hipsters and a smaller market share. They're just as evil. They're just smaller. And better at what they do.
Yeah, I don't get the deleting posts thing either, but I have to agree with SUS #30 above.
I also agree with Joel -- I'm stuck with Vista at the moment, and as a basic word processing, internet browsing, user, its serving me just fine!
Thanks for the clarification Mark. It's clear there's nothing malevolent going on, and it doesn't make a dent in my opinion of you and BB - but you could not have picked a worse company to associate with. I myself have grown quite fond of XP (I'm going to use it, like a favorite t-shirt, until nothing but translucent threads remain - then I'm switching to Ubuntu), but Microsoft's insides are Pure Evil, no two ways about it.
I left the Digg community when they chose Microsoft as their exclusive advertising provider, even though I have used Ad Block for a long time now and didn't actually realize that Digg had advertising until they mentioned it. As a result I found that Reddit fulfills my time wasting requirements quite nicely.
Now that boingboing has jumped the shark I am sure that I will find another site to drop into the slot that bb used to occupy.
Kind of a pity really. I first encountered boingboing while it was still a print zine. But then I was getting tired of all the self-referential boingboing TV and boingboing gadget posts anyway.
Thanks for the entertainment over the years guys and girls. Best wishes in your quest for wealth.
So long.
When I was young one of my favorite publications was Bill Gaines' Mad Magazine. One of the great things about Mad was that while it had ads, they weren't real. They were part of the satire. To a kid growing up in the pop culture 60s Mad was a safe haven and even an antidote from Madison Avenue.
Sometime in my late teens I stopped reading Mad every month, and soon seldom at all. One of the sad parts about growing up I guess. I would still sneak a peak at a current issue every now and then and see that many of the old "gang of idiots" were still hacking away. But months or years c