Ah, if only we had connections like the fine people at valleywag.
I promise you, George and I would only use them for good!
But seriously: a reporter who was apparently snubbed by Edelman, who
are doing PR work for Microsoft's much-maligned Zune MP3 player, let valleywag
know about the existence of this email invitation:
I work at Edelman in Seattle on behalf of Microsoft/Zune.
I'm the process of setting up 15-minute calls tomorrow
morning with a Zune spokesperson. We've identified a small
number of press from the calls and I was wondering if
you were interested and what your availability would be.
We're not making any major announcements, rather
talking about the recently released NDP numbers and
forecasts for Zune.Please feel free to call me directly to
arrange a time.Best,
Sara Ball
Edelman on behalf of Microsoft/Zune
(Attention reporters and people who get contacted by PR firms on
a regular basis! If you ever get snubbed and would like some retribution,
we at Global Nerdy are not above carrying out petty revenge
on your behalf!)
The Valleywag article goes on to speculate that the indifferent-to-harsh
coverage that Zune's been getting on the blogosphere (including this site) has made
Microsoft change their promotional tack, and “Like an erring husband, returning to a
long-suffering wife, Microsoft is trying to win back the mainstream press that it
disrespected when it launched the Zune music player.
(Memo to Valleywag: “Disrespect” is not a verb. “Dis” is.)
This strategy isn't likely to produce better results. Much of the Zune-bashing
going on in the blogosphere cited the mainstream press they're now trying
to court. Many blogs (again, this one included) pointed to the CNN clip in which
the Zune got upstaged by Soledad O'Brien's iPod Shuffle and Andy Ihnatko's
scathing review in the Chicago Sun-Times. A commenter going by
the handle of “Thenomain” summed it up nicely by coming up with a new article
title: “Zune Abandons Hostile Blogosphere…For Hostile Traditional Media.”
All this is more evidence for Daniel Eran's thesis (which we referred to in
the article Microsoft's Secret Shame: in areas where they face
actual competition, Microsoft usually takes a smackdown.