"Sorry for All the Ads," Says Former Microsoft Program Manager

[Kuala BangoDango]

Well...

...the one thing we've seen from all top levels of government, military, banking, corporate and whatever other organizations there are in the world it's that it's much better to go ahead and do bad things and apologize for it later once you're retired or no longer working there than it is to simply use your power and authority as the top guy to NOT let it happen in the first place.

I'm constantly surprised (well, not anymore anyway) by all the memoirs, auto-biographies, major network interviews and what-not done by Presidents, Congressmen, CEO's, Heads of all the different law enforcement organizations who all claim "Oh, I was against such and such ideas and knew it would lead to bad things but, you know...if only I, as the guy at the top, had the power to say "no"...but, you know, when I'm the head guy I have to do what I'm told by the people under me and keep quiet until I retired, and THEN speak out...you know....when I'm trying to sell my book and need the attention."

 

[gamegod25]

Sounds like he suggested "ads" in the sense of steam notifying you of steam sales. On steam.
Now who is the dipshit who turned that into toyota ads?

I think this is the crux of the issue. We're essentially talking about the person who invented a useful device, such as a hammer, but someone took the idea and turned it into a weapon.

Ads for services that are exclusive to the service you are using are 100% a-okay by my books. But ads for products outside the service you are paying for being displayed on the service you are paying for is a 100% no no.

Sadly someone will always find a way to take something good (or at least innocuous) and abuse it for evil and profit. Just look at DLC and pre order exclusives for example; they are fine ideas when done right yet in recent years they have been twisted by these companies into yet another way to screw over the consumer instead.

 

[josemlopes]

I honestly dont mind ads, I mean, I do like to know that EDF 2025 has been added to the Games on Demand list and that if I want I can buy it there. I do however dont like the ads to cars, movies and foods.


Ads to games (even if Call of Duty and EA Sports games do show up a lot) dont bother me at all.

 

[Vivi22]

Now let's be fair, he merely instigated the use of adds, he wasn't necessarily responsible for The Billboard That The Xbox UI Became.

And he was only suggesting ads for new games that showed up on Xbox Live Arcade. I can hardly blame him for trying to address the issue of discoverability and there's nothing inherently wrong with what he did. Sounds like once it was in Microsoft caught the wiff of money in the air and couldn't resist doing the exact thing they told him they were against when he brought up the idea.

 

[votemarvel]

I didn't mind the ads on the Blades dashboard, they never over powered the console functions.

Each new dashboard incarnation though just became more and more focused on adverts first.

 

[Mr Fixit]

So I must be the only person that gets that one little ad down near the bottom of each page of the dashboard, because I've never been able to figure out where are all these ads everyone complains about.

Unless everyone is talking about the "recommendations" & "offers" everywhere, which I don't really mind. I guess I'm too busy playing the games to notice or care.

 

[kommando367]

I don't care about the ads. I just miss the bladed dashboard, it had that cutting edge feel to it.

 

[Lightknight]

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so despite your apology I still wish the best of luck in surviving there Mr Murray.

Hah, this was never good intentions. This was about monetizing people who paid for your product already.

This would be like a hotdog stand selling you a hotdog and then yelling ads at you while you're eating it.

I don't wish the guy any ill but I'll admit that it's the advertising that got my 360 to collect dust while my ps3 saw all the action thanks to a clean interface.

Still the case. So he literally lost them at least one customer in me going forward.

 

[Slegiar Dryke]

ahhh who cares about him. Give us the guy who decided to screw over skypes data transfer method, its layout, and oh yeah....decided to fill it with ADS! now THAT'S who needs some directed internet hate towards them.

 

[Skrimmy]

Some moderation now would be ideal, like not making them the focus of the entire dashboard.

 

[votemarvel]

So I must be the only person that gets that one little ad down near the bottom of each page of the dashboard, because I've never been able to figure out where are all these ads everyone complains about.

Unless everyone is talking about the "recommendations" & "offers" everywhere, which I don't really mind. I guess I'm too busy playing the games to notice or care.

You can call them different things but at the end of the day they are still a form of advertisement.

By your logic, when the branded advertisement square is showing an advert for the Gold sub then it isn't an advertisement because it is a recommendation and offer for a Microsoft product.

Also you obviously care about this subject enough that you felt the need to comment in the thread, so your dismissive attitude is a little odd.

If the adverts, recommendations, offers etc were not being viewed and clicked on then Microsoft would not have continued with them, since they have we can confidently say they are earning Microsoft enough to warrant their increased focus.

Can I say it bothers me in any real way, no I can't to be honest, however that doesn't mean I don't understand why it annoys other people.