More Moments with Microsoft

I was sitting in a meeting today with a couple of Microsoft employees. They came in to meet with me and my boss (the CIO) to explain how a particular server product works. One of the Microsoft guys has worked with my boss for a couple of years, the other Microsoft lady has been building a relationship with me over the last few months. We tele- and web-conferenced in one of their colleagues in another city.

So imagine the scene: four of us in my boss' office, a conference phone on his desk and a mini-projector shining the web conference up on his office wall. The meeting was going very well. The guy in the other city was nearing the end of his demonstation. The final step required him to pull up his personal Hotmail account to prove to us that certain files could not be sent outside the company to be read.

I'll interrupt to ask - do you use Hotmail? Even if you don't, I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of targeted banner ads. Hotmail pays for their "free" mail service by pushing out banner ads (like the one rolling at the top of this very blog screen what do you know, blogger doesn't use banner ads anymore) to their users. They are smart enough to know that not all ads will appeal to all people. They use as much information as you supply to them to push out ads that they think you will respond to.

OK, so what banner ad was showing on this Microsoft employee's Hotmail screen? An ad to a game called ... "Light the Fart, Win a Free Phone." I seriously couldn't make that up if I tried - not even I am that funny. To make it even worse, the graphics on the ad were sooooooo non-business-situation-friendly. The ad showed cartoon drawings of butts of various shapes and sizes (some even naked) expelling gas from between their cheeks. I think you played the game by moving a lighter over the specific butt that was expelling gas at the right moment to light the fart on fire. (To think I've been wasting my time playing Scrabble and Sudoku when I could have been playing "Light the Fart".)

Anyway, it took every ounce of self-control I had to maintain my composure. I couldn't even begin to look at my boss for fear that we'd both bust out laughing. I just made a little note on my paper so that I would remember to blog about it.

The backside (pun intended) of this story is that I started thinking about those targeted ads. I went to my Hotmail account and hit refresh several times, but never saw that ad. It lead me to the conclusion that they wouldn't push that ad out to a woman in her 30s. That lead me to think about the one ad they do push out to me that is a pain in my rear end (pun intended). I get inundated by ads for online dating services. That wouldn't be so bad except the ads feature very scantily clad women. Why can't they feature stylishly dressed young men? To end this dating ad crap (pun intended), I went to my profile and told Microsoft that I was married. I have refreshed several times since...it looks like the dating ads have stopped. I'm now getting ads targeting young mothers, but those are much less offensive. Take that ad-pushing people!