OK, so the whole “upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 with lolcats and everything” viral video idea might’ve failed, but what else could get those young peeps to upgrade their browsers? Nickelback you say? Ha! Microsoft is way ahead of you with their Internet Explorer 8 Nickelback Edition, download it and get a free, unreleased track along with webisodes and what-not.

Yay. Nickelback.

Link: ie8-nickelback.com

Here’s Microsoft’s new ad for Internet Explorer 8 featuring Dean Cain (you know, Superman from the Lois and Clark TV series back in the 90’s) performing a fumbling and obviously intentionally awkward sales pitch for the browser’s sharing abilities. Could you be suffering from S.H.Y.N.E.S.S too? As in Sharing Heavily Yet Not Enough Sharing Still? Oh well.

The ad has gotten some really bad reviews, some just automatically bashing it because it’s a) from Microsoft and b) about Internet Explorer, but I don’t know, IE used to be a seriously crappy browser but I think they’ve managed to fix most of it over at Redmond. I wouldn’t vote for it as a great ad though, just adding an actor from yesteryear and lolcats won’t make this viral, something they’ve apparently gone for. I’m just happy for anything that helps getting IE 6 users to upgrade, that percentage just has to go DOWN.

I just thought of how Microsoft has managed to generate good buzz lately, releasing Windows 7 RC 1 free for everyone (for a year) and so on, but then someone at marketing just had to release something like the video above.

The ad features Wes, a “certified financial planner”, telling you how stupid the huge storage capacity on iPods is when it’ll cost you a whopping $30,000 to fill it with music bought from iTunes. So what’s the smarter alternative, oh unbiased financial planner? Well, it’s a Microsoft Zune with the $14.99/mo Zune Pass. $15 is way cheaper than $30,000. Even for Steve Ballmer.

Youtube via cult of mac, wired

So, the free-as-in-beer RC will include all the features available in the final product and will be functional until June 1st 2010. That gives you more than a year of free testing time with updates and everything. Sweet indeed.

I really, really hope PC Pro is correct here – a stunt like this could be what Microsoft needs to gain some goodwill. Windows 7 is getting some good buzz and this probably won’t hurt at allt. I’ll be the first in line to download it, can’t wait to get rid of Millenium err… Vista.

Article @ PC Pro

Update: They were right! The Windows 7 Release Candidate is now available for download here [microsoft.com].

(Via crunchgear)

So, expect the IE8 market share to grow considerably in the near future, and let’s welcome all those IE6 users who take their first staggering steps in a modern web browsing environment.

Microsoft.com: Internet Explorer 8 Home