Microsoft Finally Admits Its Malware-Style Windows 10 Upgrade Sales Pitch Went Too Far

from the self-sabotage dept

We've talked a lot about how Microsoft managed to shoot Windows 10 (and consumer goodwill) squarely in the foot by refusing to seriously address OS privacy concerns, and by using malware-style tactics to try and force users on older versions of Windows to upgrade. While Microsoft's decision to offer Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 made sense on its surface, the company repeatedly bungled the promotion by making the multi-gigabyte upgrade impossible to avoid, which was a huge problem for those on capped and metered broadband connections.

But at times Microsoft made things even worse by engaging in behavior that would make even the lowest scumware peddlers proud. Like that time the Redmond-giant began pushing Windows 10 upgrade popups that pretended to let users close the popup dialogue by pressing X, only to have that begin the upgrade anyway against the user's wishes.Between this and the company's outright refusal to let users control how and when the operating system phoned home, Microsoft managed to take a relatively successful OS launch and turn it squarely on its head -- largely by ignoring some of the most basic principles of design, customer service, and public relations.

Now that the Windows 10 upgrade push is long gone, the company actually got close to acknowledging that its behavior went too far. Speaking on the Windows Weekly podcast, Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela finally acknowledged that the company mishandled the entire forced upgrade (though he falls short of apologizing or addressing the parallel privacy concerns):

"We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective, but finding the right balance where you’re not stepping over the line of being too aggressive is something we tried and for a lot of the year I think we got it right, but there was one particular moment in particular where, you know, the red X in the dialog box which typically means you cancel didn’t mean cancel.

And within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, with the listening systems we have we knew that we had gone too far and then, of course, it takes some time to roll out the update that changes that behavior. And those two weeks were pretty painful and clearly a lowlight for us. We learned a lot from it obviously."

Except Microsoft didn't really "get it right," and users made that abundantly obvious. And whether Microsoft actually "learned a lot from it" really isn't clear, since a refusal to let users truly control how the OS works (whether it's preventing the OS from being quite so chatty or letting users dictate upgrade schedules on their own terms) has been somewhat of a recurring theme since launch. That "we know what's best for you" mentality has been bone-grafted to the company's DNA for some time, and we'll likely have to wait until Windows 11 to see if any lessons were actually learned.

Filed Under: push, upgrade, windows 10
Companies: microsoft

Everything Old Is New Again: The Return Of Push

from the this-ain't-your-father's-pointcast dept

Recently I mentioned that I think services like Twitter are likely to help stitch together the variety of short-messaging options that are becoming available to mobile users. There's another story here, though: the shift in net architecture that's taking place in order to support these new services.

Jive Software has an interesting blog post about one of these technologies: XMPP, aka Jabber (ReadWriteWeb also has a thoughtful post on the matter here). Jabber is an increasingly popular XML protocol that powers instant messaging services like Google Talk -- and many other things. As the Jive post points out, Tivo is beginning to use XMPP to notify its customers' set-top boxes of schedule updates. The old alternative involved each Tivo polling a central server every so often to check for updates, the same way that email and RSS clients do. But that's inefficient, particularly if the polling needs to be done frequently. An IM protocol is ideally suited to delivering messages with little latency and in a lightweight manner (and will know how to traverse users' NAT routers, too). XMPP is particularly extensible and comprehensive, making it useful for many different applications.

And XMPP isn't the only technique being used to solve these problems. Comet is another emerging technology with a similar purpose, but focused specifically on the web. Instead of repeated polling, a Comet app keeps one very long-running HTTP connection open, along which messages can be sent without waiting for the browser to ask for them. This lets applications like Gmail and Meebo deliver performance that's virtually latency-free.

Although I'm tempted to avoid the baggage that comes with it, this trend does fit pretty comfortably into the push/pull paradigm of the late 90s. I have good reason for that reticence: as anyone who's lived through periods of both thin and fat client triumphalism knows, enthusiasm for different technological approaches is cyclical, driven by whatever applications people consider most exciting at the time, and along the way shoehorning a lot of ill-suited apps into the hot paradigm du jour.

But this time the demand for push protocols is more than just a fad. It's also a sign of our increasing technological sophistication. Polling is no longer an option for a lot of reasons, but all of them have to do with computing's ubiquity: there are too many users, too many devices, and no patience for less than immediate performance. Broadcast was fine when technology was just entertainment; pull was fine when technology was just a supplement to our lives. But now it seems that the network is driving our daily activities, and we can't wait around for it to do so.

Filed Under: comet, push, xmpp

Mobile Advertisers Can't Resist Thinking That A Single Call To Action Means Universal Rights To Bug People

from the pull,-not-push dept

For years, we've been trying to convince advertisers that mobile advertising needs to be about "pull" rather than "push" advertising. Since mobile users are "on the go" and often busy with something else, interrupting them with their mobile phone is going to be seen as a tremendous intrusion, often pissing off most recipients. Instead, the focus should be on setting up situations where the ads are effectively "called" by the user who is specifically looking for something (think Google ads, rather than pop up ads). For example, having a billboard that offers someone something if they punch in a code on their phone. Or, perhaps, making it easy for someone to proactively check if there are discounts at nearby coffee shops -- rather than simply bombarding them with offers as they pass-by coffee shops.

Unfortunately, it looks like some advertisers are only getting half of the message. While they understand the importance of there being some kind of "call to action" by the user to initiate any kind of advertising relationship, many seem to think that after that initial call to action, users are more open to receiving ongoing communications. That's unlikely to be true -- as many users may want a particular type of communication at one time, but will not be in the mood to get something similar the next day when they're in a rush to get somewhere. The companies pay lip service to not bothering people by saying things like: "If there is no response after several times, the phone will stop sending alerts." However, by that point, you've already annoyed the person "several times" after they only opted-in to hear what you had to say once. It's hard to see how that's beneficial at all.

Filed Under: mobile ads, pull, push, spam
Companies: clear channel