Top 10 Most Memorable Tech Super Bowl Ads

theodp writes "From 1977's lovable Xeroxing Monk to 2007's smug-and-rich SalesGenie pitch man, Valleywag has rounded up videos for its Top 10 most memorable tech-oriented Super Bowl commercials. The commercials are: Apple (1984), Monster (1999), CareerBuilder (2005), GoDaddy (2005), Xerox (1977), E*Trade (1999), Pets.com (2000), Computer.com (2000), SalesGenie.com (2007) and OurBeginning (2000). This year's ads are coming soon." I've always been a fan of the Outpost.com gerbil cannon spot.

digg?

[loconet]

/me checks the URL. Yes, it says slashdot.org . wtf is going on? I'm scared.

Re:digg?

[astrosmash]

Well, using the dark "Slashdot" green background for the entire story description is a little much.

But I really like the updated layout. They're no longer wasting valuable real estate on the pointless left-hand column.

Re:

[goatpunch]

Yes, getting rid of the junk on the left hand side for every story is great.

Breaks page down and page up

[LinEagle]

Yes but it breaks page down and page up, because the left hand bar is now hovering at the top of the screen... so some text gets hidden when moving between pages because my browser (Firefox 2.0.0.11) does not realize the bar is there at the top.

Re:

[dysfunct]

They're no longer wasting valuable real estate

It's pretty nice - at least until you realize that long horizontal lines of text are more strenuous to read. Shorter lines with more rows are a lot easier on the eyes.

Re:

[Fred_A]

It's pretty nice - at least until you realize that long horizontal lines of text are more strenuous to read. Shorter lines with more rows are a lot easier on the eyes.

Hint : You don't *have* to maximize your window.

My Firefox windows are spawned with a geometry of 850x1100 which makes for nicely legible text on most sites (and often hides some of the right hand ad bar on the wide ones).

Re:

[complete loony]

Also note the firehose-y behaviour of http://idle.slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org] but with a similar layout.

Grumpy old men...

[adam]

Damn kids, get off my lawn!

Jeeeeez people, calm down. As of composing this, about 75% of the comments are complaining of digg similarities, the new discussion system, blah blah. Calm down, people.. it's still slashdot. As best I can tell, they've just debuted a new section (idle.slashdot). You can still post your retarded memes (In soviet Russia our new CSS web 2.0 overlords welcome I, for one), and otherwise go about your typical slashdot business.

Back to the actual article.. I'd never heard of computer.com.. I guess it would help if I watched the superbowl.. but, yea, I don't. After viewing all the ads in TFA, some are decent (and I've seen re-run later), and some aren't terribly memorable (the salesgenie ad looks like something a 12 year old kid could storyboard in about an hour). Most of the dotcom ads are from companies I'm aware of (monster, pets.com, etc), although I never heard of computer.com or ourbeginning.com.

I tried to do some research on computer.com to see what its story was (currently a doorway page [computer.com] for a linkfarm).. and as best I can tell, it burned out right away (Seattle PI story from 2yrs later [nwsource.com]). (They raised $6M+ in venture funding [medialifemagazine.com], and blew $3M on the superbowl ads). There's even a 3yr old /. story [slashdot.org] that has computer.com in the comments, but TFA doesn't seem to mention computer.com directly (and the linked "video dot-bombs" from TFA doesn't seem to work for me). I'm curious if anyone here knows the full story?

Re:

[ModernGeek]

It looks like it pointed to http://computers4sure.com/ [computers4sure.com] at one point or another, and their phone number is 1 800 COMPUTER, so I am assuming the just lost the domain, or rebranded from computer.com to computers4sure.com

Re:

[PrvtBurrito]

You'll get over it.

Re:

[bendodge]

Has anyone found out how to hide this "Idle" section? It doesn't seem to be with all the other categories in Preferences.

Re:digg?

[sqrt(2)]

Hey, I'm a nerd AND I like football. Go figure.

But anyway, this is scaring me. Why is slashdot trying to copy and compete with the likes of Digg? I come here because this place is DIFFERENT, the discourse is often intelligent and insightful. If I wanted mindless links to ads, Ron Paul you tube videos, and funny pictures I wouldn't be on a site that purports to cover "News for Nerds".

Re:

[scottv67]

I come here because this place is DIFFERENT, the discourse is often intelligent and insightful.

You must be new here. You can count on Slashdot discussions to contain gems of wisdom like:

1. That story about the guy who ate other people's shit
2. The story about the old farmhand who played with the "pecker" of the young farmhand
3. The plague of Minicity links
4. Every story is tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" by third-graders who visit /. while their teacher isn't looking
5. The GNAA posts
6. The angry atheist comment

Re:digg?

[sqrt(2)]

Of course there are trolls. You're going to deal with people like that everywhere you go, on and offline (They're just more prevalent and egregious when they have anonymity). I've read genuinely interesting and informative posts too, and they usually out number the people that are just making noise.

Re:

[Slime-dogg]

With that sig, you must really be new here.

Re:

[sqrt(2)]

Check my UID. I'm not THAT new.

Not all geeks are libertarians. In fact I'd say most are not. The ones that are just happen to be incredibly vocal.

Re:

[mortonda]

Check my UID. I'm not THAT new.

Yes, you are.

Re:

[SL Baur]

Sometimes it's really hard to find the wheat amongst the chaff.

Yeah, but so what? That's always been true anywhere, well except for moderated newsgroups on Usenet.

Moderation sucks and slashdot moderations suck harder. Read at -1, ignore the moderation and skim past the offensive posts.

There's a lot of entertaining material here, you just have to get past the moderation to see most of it. I'm not the only low 5-digit or less Slashdot ID who still reads and posts here. Any web site that keeps readers for over a decade is doing something right.

Re:

[SL Baur]

It's called filters and it works great on Usenet. Unfortunately it takes work.

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen's scoring mode in Gnus was a great idea at the time, but even with work it didn't work all that well in real life (sorry Lars).

Google seems to do a little better with gmail, but it's far from perfect and is getting worse over time as SPAMmers get more sophisticated. I regularly have mailing list mail misfiled as SPAM and get SPAM in my inbox. I also have a decade+ old email address that I've used to post to Usenet.

Any company[microsoft.com] that keeps it's customers must be doing something right.

Ouch. You win (except for the grammar - it's "its" not "it's").

Re:

[starwed]

Still completely superior to digg.

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

You forgot:

• In Soviet Russia...
• Goatse links right in the story submission
• I, for one, welcome our new football-watching couch potato overlords
• ...

Re:

[ibentmywookie]

This article makes a lot of sense really. The game is so damn boring, that the ads are really the highlight.

No, I'm not from the US :-)

Re:digg?

[AmaDaden]

Why is slashdot trying to copy and compete with the likes of Digg?

Why shouldn't it? The core of Slashdot is and always will be the same. Adding more on the edges (the Idle section) is unlikely to effect that. As for the layout if the site that is known to be 'news for nerds' fell behind tech wise it would be a laughing stock. They need to try new things every so often. If no one likes it they will go back to the old design.

Side note: Scrolling in this new comment system does suck. Go in to Prefs and turn off "Enable Dynamic Discussions" for a speed boost.

Re:digg?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a former jock and I don't give a damn about professional sports. What the hell do I care about some massive corporation pitting its employees against each other in arenas that were subsidized by tax payers? You might as well be rooting for coke versus pepsi. Incredibly retarded, but I guess sports suits the goal of placating and soothing the masses so they don't have time or energy to care about important things that are affecting them.

Re:digg?

[rossz]

I'd moderate you up, but I don't have any points at the moment.

The millionaires who demand subsidies to build stadiums or they'll move their team elsewhere insisted that their sporting events helped the local economy by bringing in tax revenues. The first baseball strike proved what a lie that was. What actually happened was people did other things in their cities. They went to dinner and a movie or the theater, etc. They spent roughly the same amount of money except they spread it across multiple businesses instead of only at the stadium. This was actually BETTER for the local economy. More businesses benefited and the tax revenues were often bigger because the professional sports team often received a tax break to stay in town.

Screw professional sports. The next time one demands the taxpayer's cough up money or they'll walk, show them the door.

Re:

[morari]

Damn it, I just used the last of my mod points earlier today! You sir, would have received a +Insightful for sure.

Re:

[symbolic]

I have to say that I agree. Somehow "professional" sports loses its shine when you're rooting for which corporation gets the biggest payoff.

Re:

[WGR]

Actually I am installing a new version of TeX WHILE watching the SuperBowl . There are so many commercials it gives lots of time to use the keyboards.

Re:

[ResidntGeek]

Football a "nerd sport"? You have no clue what a nerd is, do you?

This new look...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is just horrible: Don't go the same way as Digg, or you'll also start attracting the same crowd. I don't need pictures of the movie: If I'm interested enough, I'll click the freaking link...

Re:This new look...

[jmv]

If I'm interested enough, I'll click the freaking link...

I'm sorry, this is against the Slashdot terms of conduct.

There are links ...?

[pbhj]

There are links ...?

Why didn't anyone say?

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

If I'm interested enough, I'll click the freaking link...

I'm sorry, this is against the Slashdot terms of conduct.

Indeed. On Slashdot, doing that would often send you to the moon...

Re:

[AstrumPreliator]

I'm going to have to guess that this move is to attract a larger user base and get some more ad revenue. Having a site devoted to geeky tech articles limits your user base considerably. Internet/Tech pop-culture is an extremely easy way to widen your target audience. Sites like Digg have tapped into this audience and Slashdot apparently wants a piece of the pie.

On the plus side it's in its own section with a design so gaudy I can easily avoid it. That's the only plus though. The bad part is it will attract

Re:

[lucas teh geek]

On the plus side it's in its own section with a design so gaudy I can easily avoid it.

really? have you tried? i looked and it's not in the list of sections you can block in the homepage customization options. I'm sure it'll be fixed eventually, but right now you cant easily avoid it's gaudy design

Re:

[Scaba]

Don't go the same way as Digg, or you'll also start attracting the same crowd

What, people who aren't afraid of change?

Re:

[rampant mac]

"I don't need pictures of the movie: If I'm interested enough, I'll click the freaking link..."

No one, and I mean no one, reads the f*cking articles here. Click the picture. n00b.

Re:

[Slime-dogg]

I remember when Digg started up, and there was a plethora of comments that linked to Digg and referred to it.

If there's worry about the "Digg crowd," it's important to remember that much of the "Digg crowd" really is just old /. people. I don't go to Digg, personally, but I can't imagine both sites having mutually exclusive memberships.

You would think...

[computerman413]

That Slashdot would bother to announce a major change to its layout. I don't like it any more than I like the new discussion system.

Re:

[bersl2]

I think this is just for this subdomain, which I don't remember being announced anyway.

Re:

[gEvil (beta)]

idle = diggdot?

Re:

[_Sprocket_]

idle = diggdot?

I used to love that game! Wait...

Re:

[Punto]

yeah, they should have told us that they were going to start covering sports

Re:

[Jugalator]

I like most of it! I like how it separates the text from the comments in a distinct way. I also like how the new comment system works faster for me than the old one, and the extra features it brings.

I don't like the now very small text boxes to input text in though, among a few things. :-S

This message was brought to you to by the Resistance From Geeks Reluctant To Change.

Also Updated Firehose - http://idle.slashdot.org/

[Myriad]

Interesting... if you remove the story from the link, going straight to http://idle.slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org] you still get the Superbowl ad story, but under it you'll see an Idle Firehose in a new interface. The page title becomes Firehose as well.

Changes are afoot!

Re:

[Mike89]

We are talking about the 'I am willing to help test Slashdot's New Discussion System.', right? It's horrible! I like it the way it is.. I can open a dozen stories, and they DON'T lag my browser out!? What on earth!? Why would anyone want this!

Also the new comment system doesn't work on my Wii. The scrolling bit just takes up the whole screen. :(.

Re:

[Trogre]

It wouldn't be so bad if you could change it like the other sections. Like the IT section. Just change it.shashdot.org.. to shit.slashdot.org/... and the ugly white/brown goes away. Not so here. Maybe they've 'fixed' the other sections too now.

Re:You would think...

[VultureMN]

If only they had some way to post articles about the changes...

Re:

[adolf]

If such an article were ever posted, I'd first complain that having boxes drawn around comments is silly, that it detracts from the content, and that it is without positive merit.

I'd then complain that the big Slashdot-green box within which is contained the article text is annoying. It doesn't flow for shit, and is furthermore hideous.

And I'd also complain that the box surrounding the text on the submission page is too small. I want it bigger. And it was bigger prior to this change. Last time this port

It's just the Idle section

[Xenographic]

They've had tons of idle stories, but you can only see them by modifying your account to show the idle section or by looking in the firehose. I think this is just the first one to show up on the main page.

And yeah, like the other guy said, this theme is ONLY for the idle section. You can probably just change the idle.slashdot.org to www.slashdot.org to get rid of it, actually. I know I had to make a script to do that so games.slashdot.org doesn't get blocked at work (I think I changed games -> it).

Idl

errr.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I preferred the ponies.

Idle

[icegreentea]

Apparently Slashdot now has a section specifically for nonsensible and pointless articles. And they even made it look like digg!

Re:Idle

[Planky]

It's just an idle dig at Digg...

Re:

[saibot834]

Why would they need a section for that? I thought wasting away geeks' time was the whole point of Slashdot.

Re:

[Idiomatik]

Not only that, its enforced pointlessness.
http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome [slashdot.org]
Its the only section that you can't shutoff from showing up on the main page. Obviously just forgotten but still ironic they'd miss the only section a significant number of members will shut off.

Join!

[Daimanta]

And Slashdot this comment!

oh my god

[hav0x]

the goggles! they do nothing!

Re:

[MarkRose]

Here, you can borrow these [shifted.ca]!

Poor article got the shaft

[CharAznable]

I predict there will be close to zero posts about the article itself.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Just to prove you wrong:

The 1984 Apple advert was clearly a classic and the 1977 Xerox one (while seriously dated) was pretty entertaining. The rest, it seems, were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Were there really no good superbowl commercials in the last 30 years? The pets.com one looks like the kind of thing that made me give up having a television in my house.

Back off topic, I quite like the new layout but the comment submission page sucks beyond belief. Was the CareerBuilder.com advert

Re:

[dwater]

IMO, almost all of them are crap.

The only one worth my time is the E*Trade one, which appealed to the cynic in me :)

BTW, where is The Dot?

[D4C5CE]

Probably this Sun did not rise in the Superbowl break, but they did make a movie trailer of "Just when your competition thought it was safe to do business [salon.com]" back in the day.

And then there were IBM's OS/2-toting nuns ("my mobile") & gears supplier (to Japanese clients)... Sightings, anyone?

Re:

[Trogre]

Yeah. I live in NZ and those Nuns and the Surfers were the only OS/2 commercials we got here. Pity they're not on Youtube. All the OS/2 ads on there seem to be dry business folks drooling at a screen we can't see.

wait a second...

[hjf]

I thought I read "tech-oriented"? Then why the hell is Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, SalesGenie.com and *gasp* OurBeginnings.com in that list? Everything with ".com" in the name is "tech-oriented" now? Sheesh.

Re:

[grommit]

No shit. Then there's the fact that it's supposed to be the "most memorable" ads. Did the editors even *look* at that Salesgenie ad? One of the most boring and tired ads I've seen.

Still waiting...

[MousePotato]

Back in the early 90's they had an IBM ad for a slick phone/wearable computer/heads-up display. Some guy was trading pork belly's in a park on the other side of the world while feeding pidgeons. They showed it again on the last episode of Star Trek TNG. Probably a few times after that. The product never made it to market and even if they launched it today would probably be the iphone killer that every geek dreams of.

My vote for the biggest vaporware product ad evah.

Re:

[hitmark]

quick setup:
http://www.myvu.com/ [myvu.com] for display.
some random umpc for computing.
a mobile phone doing hsdpa or evdo for connectivity.

problem is input and battery life...

godaddy

[rucs_hack]

Wasn't GoDaddy the company that paid lots for the superbowl advert, then died?

I ask purely because I know there was one famous dot com bust faliure known for a great superbowl advert that failed soon after, and I can't recall the name.

There, and I didn't mention the hideous new layout once....

Re:

[Grimoire]

That would be pets.com [wikipedia.org]. Now the sock hawks car loans.

Re:

[slashdotmsiriv]

I believe that was pets.com. Godaddy is still alive and kicking.

It seems that computers.com did not fare good as well.

Re:

[afidel]

Their website isn't alive and well though! Their Danika ad apparently slashdotted their site into oblivion. Glad I'm not trying to do any domain operations with them tonight, I'd be pissed that they fucked up their site with a stupid ad stunt that they should have been prepared for.

Outpost.com gerbil cannon spot

[circletimessquare]

i liked it mainly because i couldn't imagine an ad that would piss off PETA more

Budwiser should fire their add agency

[tkrotchko]

The fire breathing beer commercial was so dumb that the CEO should probably fire their agency and marketing department.

And they paid first commercial money for that. Ouch.

10 Best Ads Already Done

[sjvn]

eWEEK already did it with a different list of ads earlier this week.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Super-Tech-Ads/ [eweek.com]

Steven

Really? The go daddy ad?

[SynapseLapse]

A woman with large breasts is all it takes to be memorable? Didn't realize /. had been purchased by fark.com.

Re:

[Faylone]

No, but it sure helps.

Re:

[TimHunter]

A woman with large breasts is all it takes to be memorable?

You're gay, aren't you?

Re:

[florescent_beige]

A woman with large breasts is all it takes to be memorable?

Um...you...I mean...ok but...well...yes?

My personal favorite

[wkitchen]

The EDS cat herding commercial: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8 [youtube.com]

Re:

[dwater]

just silly, IMO

The only one I've seen so far that's worth mentioning is the E*Trade one from TFA.

I'm not from the US and so don't see the commercials, but even I've heard they're supposed to be good...nothing that memorable yet.

IMO, the Apple vs PC ones are way better...

Arrrgh... top 10 lists

[owlnation]

layout change... disconcerted...confused... make. it. stop. ...

ok... trying to focus...

Top 10 lists. Is it just me? Or does everyone when they see any kind of "top 10" list they immediately think:

1. Lazy worthless journalists.
2. Product placement / viral marketing / ad by stealth

I need to work 10 list of things I'd like to do to journalists. But it'll have to wait until after I have recovered from the brain damage that is this new layout...

apple ad, prophecy?

[hitmark]

the more i read about locked iphones, itunes and whatsnot it strikes me as kinda ironic that apple ran a ad about 1984...

Re:

[Joe U]

Why does everyone seem to think that Apple is represented by the woman with the hammer in that commercial?

Re:

[that this is not und]

The historical context for the Apple '1984' ad was that in that era, most computing was locked up in Mainframe operations. There was a crew with labcoats on who where the only people allowed to touch actual computer hardware. If you needed a printout, you filled out a form and put it in the basket next to the half-door that separated 'users' from the IT staff.

Microsoft and Apple were both 'liberating' from that computer culture, with the notion of everybody having their own computer on their desk.

The 'IBM

Re:

[Crizp]

*whoosh* *thud* ouch!

check your sarcasm / irony detectors, cadet!

Re:

[rueger]

Agreed. Trouble is Apple fans confuse snotty and arrogant with "iconic".

I really wonder who Apple's ads are aimed at (like the endlessly irritating Mac vs PC ads). Surely they aren't intended to convince PC users to switch - insulting someone usually isn't an effective way to do that - so the only point of them must be to keep the Apple brethren convinced of their innate superiority.

(this comment composed on a G4 Powerbook, freshly rebooted after the latest kernel panic)

Re:

[CastrTroy]

However, most PC users are quite annoyed with their computer experience. Most of the recent Mac commercials I've seen poke fun at all the problems that PCs usually have, like viruses, ugly computer design, and the fact that they come installed with tons of adware. Mac commercials say, here's a list of all the problems we know you have, and we know you hate. And if you want something more out of your computer, then buy a Mac. I'm typing this on a Windows machine myself, which I don't really have a proble

Re:

[Joe U]

However, I think that Windows does a terrible job for the general populous

I think the problem is that no OS can fit the general populous without having problems. Windows is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none platform. That's why there are so many editions of Windows, Microsoft can't just release 'Windows' and have everyone happy. Home users don't care about running a domain controller and most business users are not too keen on media center.

You'll always have other platforms out there, simply because they can fill in the niches that Microsoft can't dedicate enough time for.

Re:

[symbolic]

Interesting comment - even more when you consider that Apple products (especially since the Macintosh) have always been somewhat "locked." They had the Mac Toolbox ROM which contained all the GUI stuff, and the whole thing was very closed and proprietary compared to PC hardware. The early macs even required a special wrench to open the box.

WTF?

[rnws]

I do hope this is just a section (idle.slashdot) change and not intended to be a site-wide change. Looks not good and way too many active widgets in the page.

what

[takeya]

I already come here to idly pass my time away with tech news, not shitty popularly selected pop-news articles.

I don't know or care about football games, but..

[Fantastic Lad]

I enjoyed a couple of IBM's ads promoting Linux.

This odd little number which reminds me of THX1138 and 2001 [youtube.com]

And. . .

Sisko doing Morpheus [youtube.com]

These tap into the love of geeks for sci-fi and ideals about freedom in a manner which must have been fun for the guys making these ads. --Which goes to show that having a huge ad budget means you can do some cool stuff from time to time.

-FL

Re:I don't know or care about football games, but.

[dwater]

They're ok, I guess. Lost on the masses, I guess.

I still prefer the E*Trade one from TFA.

Super Bowl?!!

[CyberLife]

What's the Super Bowl? Is that anything like Puppy Bowl? :P

I can't filter idle?

[Night Goat]

So when is Slashdot going to let me start filtering out all idle.slashdot.org articles? This is not good, Digg is not something to emulate.

Everyone's so focused on the 'new look'

[jadin]

Everyone's ignoring the actual story, which was pretty sad. No commentary on "why" they were memorable, most of which weren't. I'd say most were mediocre at best. Seems like this "story" if you want to call it that was made just to drive traffic. Why was this front paged?

that time linux got a superbowl commercial

[plurgid]

Damn, I really expected *someone* here would have mentioned it by now.

It was a couple of years ago. It was IBM, and I thought it did a pretty damn good job of explaining to the world WTF Linux is and why they should care.

and it was pretty damn awesome.

Subject

[Legion303]

When I want to read about ads I go to digg, but thanks anyway.

Best line ever...

[CrazyTalk]

"Everybody wants to work in marketing" from GoDaddy.com last year.

Re:

[Dadoo]

Besides Officemax's Rubberband Man is the most memorable superbowl ad.

While I'll agree Rubber Band Man should be on that list, and a few that are on the list shouldn't be (I mean, come on, what's funny or interesting about the SalesGenie.com or GoDaddy.com commercials?), there's no question the 1984 Macintosh ad is the best, so far, and will probably remain the best for a while. Seriously - the thing was directed by Ridley Scott. Of course, if you actually watched it when it originally aired, it was a lot m