NBC has received a fair amount of buzz for being first out of the gate this year with an offer to watch the full pilot of one of its new fall shows, specifically Thursday-night comedy Community, starring Joel McHale (The Soup), Chevy Chase, and John Oliver (The Daily Show). What most people are fixated on is that NBC chose Facebook to host the video rather than post it on NBC.com or the most obvious choice, Hulu, in which NBC is a founding partner.
Before we speculate as to why NBC did this, let's consider the experience of watching the pilot, which is as good a case study of misunderstanding social media as you're ever likely to find. The most significant issue arises before you've even begun: NBC asks you to "become a fan" of the show before you've watched the show! Has anyone at NBC ever been on Facebook, or any other social network? You "like" something after you've interacted with the content.
It's a pretty straightforward premise, but one that NBC botches right out of the gate. It's as if they were inspired by one of the show's first scenes. Before the episode's title credits, McHale's character meets the person who's clearly being set up to be his buddy, Abed, a young Muslim man with Asperger's. After Abed tells McHale's character, Jeff, his life story and then introduces himself, McHale says, "Nice to know you, and then meet you." That neatly sums up NBC's social-media strategy.
Worse, once you do become a fan, you're not taken directly to the pilot episode. You're still stuck on the preview page and have to click again to the pilot itself. I have to imagine Hulu would have created a more seamless experience. And when you do finally get to the pilot and press play, you're asked first if you want to share this with your friends. Nice to know you, and then meet you, indeed. I say to my friends all the time, "Hey, here's this thing I know nothing about but I want to recommend it to you." (Even dumber, NBC doesn't pop up that offer to recommend the pilot to friends after you've watched the program.)
I get it: NBC isn't posting this video out of altruism; it's market research in the guise of presenting NBC as a company that "gets the future." But surely there must have been some happy medium that wouldn't have depicted NBC as a pushy corporation desperate for me to like this show so much that I'd say I was a "fan" and recommend it to my friends before I'd set eyes on it. Which, when I think about it, is kind of like Joel McHale's character in Community, an entitled douche who's always taking the easy way out.
Although I didn't experience any problems watching the video--my picture was smooth and crisp--a quick perusal of wall comments reveals that plenty of people did. Again, this is something that NBC might have thought about in choosing Facebook as its host. Facebook is excellent at letting people share homemade, uploaded video, but it has no real experience serving up high-resolution, 25-minute episodes of a television show, like, say, Hulu, NBC.com, or even MySpace.
Another social-media misunderstanding was NBC blocking non-U.S. viewers from watching the Community pilot. I get it: The show is a U.S. show and NBC wants as clean an experience as possible in gauging viewer reaction to the pilot. It doesn't do NBC much good today if the show takes off in Belarus. But social networks obviously transcend geography, much the same way that global conglomerates such as GE, NBC's parent company, transcend geography. Hulu is U.S. only, but it's short-sighted of NBC to alienate so many in the global audience who could become fans--and paying customers--for its entertainment products.
All of this helps explain why Community has attracted only 10,492 fans as
of this writing, after offering this exclusive, limited-time preview
for two days. As for those low fan totals, perhaps NBC slightly outsmarted itself because I did rescind my "fan" status right after watching the show. The show's pretty good, mind you, and I will likely watch it again, but it didn't quite merit my public embrace of the program (if you want to do the same, scroll
all the way to the bottom of the wall page and you can click to remove your fan status on the bottom left.)
NBC's choice of Facebook over its own properties--and if you've ever suffered through a Biggest Loser segment on The Today Show, you know how big a deal this is, because it goes against everything NBC seems to stand for in 2009--says a lot about what NBC and the other networks need from Hulu. Even in the thus-far meager fan numbers for Community, NBC is getting a treasure trove of data about who's watching, what they're saying, and what else they do and like and what kind of influencer they are among their peers. This is much harder to do at Hulu, which added some social-networking features five months ago, but which clearly can't compete with the massive audience and the broader mission of Facebook. Traditional TV networks are about attracting mass viewership and about parsing demographics, and Facebook gives NBC a deeper shot at doing so than anything else.
You still have a couple of days to watch Community, but when you do, also watch the sideshow that is NBC's poor understanding of community.
Christina Davidson at TheAtlantic.com is on a recession road trip (fun!), and this week, she stopped into a comedy club in Kansas City to check on the state of the funny business. She finds the Stanford and Sons Comedy Club hunkered down, having been "steeled in survivor mode for most of the past decade." Thankfully, dear reader, she discovers the following nugget of wisdom:
The recession has caused the most lingering downturn in business, but the difference now is that people still want to laugh. In fact, they need to laugh. They just can't afford to go out and spend too much money.
But seriously, folks. This tired canard resurfaces whenever a comedy tourist writes about the business. And it's something that would never happen in any other industry. Imagine The Atlantic making such pronouncements about the recession, the mood of the American people, and the state of the consumer electronics business by sending a writer to a transistor-radio factory.
In truth, this is something of a golden age for comedy and comedy fans. Films such as The Hangover set records at the box office and propel comedians such as Zach Galifianakis to stardom. The network sitcom may be in a slump, but successful half-hour comedies are flourishing on cable--from TBS' more traditional sitcoms My Boys and Tyler Perry's House of Payne, to Comedy Central's inventive Michael and Michael Have Issues and HBO's Flight of the Conchords. Stand-up comedy has never been better or more varied, with top-grossing acts like ventriloquist Jeff Dunham earning approximately $30 million a year. There's also a healthy middle and upper-middle class of great performers such as Josh Sneed, whom Davidson highlights in her piece.
So I'm not quite sure what the heck Davidson or the KC club owner are talking about when he says, "Big-name comedians are almost unemployable. I can't afford to book
someone who charges $20,000 or more a week." Yeah, that Jerry Seinfeld and the $85 million he's pulling in a year. Too bad he's priced himself out of working Stanford and Sons.
As in any business, the ones who are succeeding are the most entrepreneurial. Sneed is somewhat backhandedly complimented in The Atlantic's piece as being a "triple leaguer," meaning AAA compared with major-leaguers. But Sneed shouldn't be underestimated. Based in Cincinnati, the former P&G employee learned his lessons about marketing well. I "discovered" him because he posts on a popular message board for comedy fans called ASpecialThing.com. Sneed started a podcast about 8 months ago and promotes it there. He's active on Facebook and Twitter. He runs a business called Look At Me Shirts, helping other comedians create and sell t-shirts for fans who want a momento after seeing them perform live. And guess what? He's funny as hell too.
There are hundreds of other examples of performers building a following online, and trying, at least on occasion, to break free of the club circuit, booking themselves into rock clubs or small theaters--and reaping a bigger slice of the revenue. As for clubs, not all of them are stuck in the 1980s. A new breed of venues such as Comix in New York, Helium in Philadelphia, and the Laughing Skull Lounge in Atlanta present comedy as something for people who want a laugh, yes, but who also aren't just out to see "comedy," as comedian Patton Oswalt used to say, as if it was something that was done to you.
Is the business changing? Yes. Like every other one. Too bad Davidson didn't focus on the innovation that's happening both on and off stage, and instead trotted out one of the oldest jokes in the business.
A highly detailed proposal for Microsoft's stores leaked online late Friday afternoon, and if it's real, Redmond's first foray into retail appears to be following the usual Microsoft formula: Roll up the best ideas of others and muscle their way into our wallets, if not our hearts. If you weren't already depressed about the state of retail, Microsoft isn't peddling the ailment that'll cure us.
The PowerPoint presentation (naturally) takes us on a journey of "Emily," a hot mom, for lack of a better term, through the Microsoft retail experience. Highlights include many of the same features we parodied last October as being extremely tired retail cliches: There will be an "Answer Bar," a ginormous video wall around the whole store, community areas, and of course, plenty of computers to play with "Microsoft's innovative technology."
Let's quickly take these one by one:
Guru Bar: Guru, eh? Real original. In the company's defense, Microsoft Genius would have been an even bigger oxymoron. How about wizards? You could have staffers in
big cone hats that also happen to resemble dunce caps, which is what
this whole idea is: Stupid. Much like the whole retail "bar" concept, which is so played out, I am waiting for a "concept" restaurant to offer customers a "Bar Bar." Simply schedule an appointment online and you can talk to a snooty person in a hip t-shirt who may or may not fix your mood.
Video Wall: Unless you're Amish, you've probably seen a video screen before. I don't understand why companies think this is so cool, but they sure do care that theirs is bigger than anyone else's. A middle-aged company like Microsoft can't drive a Porsche, so I guess this is their only other option.
Community Area: If I'm tired, I'm more than happy to sit down in your store for awhile on one of these benches. But let's not pretend that there's a community of Microsoft fans who are going to gather in your store. And if you can't get it naturally, you can always create contrived ones: Read the media wall slide and you'll see that the plan calls for "moments of "Inclusive Exuberance" in the store. Maybe everyone will vomit in unison from being surrounded by flickering video screens.
Interactive kiosks: I actually love this idea. If Microsoft had had these stores last spring when I bought a Vista-enabled PC (that I returned 12 days later), I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.
To return to the serious matter at hand for a moment, the proposal focuses on Windows 7, Surface, PCTV, Xbox, and its Mobile products, although don't worry, Excel fans! It does appear that every member of Microsoft's happy, sexy family of products will be on sale or display in some way, shape, or form. I wish them all the best.
Wow, I can't believe it. I'm gonna be rich! Hmm, what's this video with Tony's email announcing that we're going to be part of Amazon. Jeff Bezos is welcoming me into the Amazon family. Cool. What a nice gesture rather than a sterile press release.
:09 Where is Jeff? Is that his house? :19 Why is Bezos reminiscing about his startup days? He's not paying $847 million for a company run out of Tony's house with orange extension cables, right? We're a 10-year old company, Jeff! :36 Damn, Bezos is in great shape. Does he do pilates? :41 They couldn't run the vacuum cleaner and the business at the same time? 1:06 My first time hearing Bezos' infamous laugh with him as my boss. Kind of a letdown to be honest. 1:15 "My whole body is covered in scar tissue." TMI!!! Heads up next time, so I can grab my barf bag. 1:26 I hope there weren't any dogs running around Amazon when they had that bell ring every time they got an order. Paging, Dr. Pavlov. 2:00 "Everything I know" by Jeff Bezos. In six minutes. Okaaaaaaaaay. 2:10 Does he always have that flip chart out there on the patio? 2:15 Obsess over customers. He's kidding, right? We know! We do it better than you do! That's why you bought us. 2:53 "Obsessing over customers covers a lot of errors." Does it paper over being a condescending lecturer? Because, come on: I've helped build this company, I love working here, I love our customers, and you're talking to me like Jeff Bezos invented customer service and let me explain to you that it's important. 3:00 "Invent. Really important." Tell me more, Mr. Wizard. Sheesh, this guy's kind of a douche. 3:07: What's Amazon's stock price? $88.79. I have how many stock options that could be converted? Awesome: I'm getting that BMW! 3:18 Seriously, where is Bezos? Did he do this deal from his island compound in the Caribbean? He's like a young Bond villain, with that maniacal cackle and the bald head. 3:30 "Listen to customers." Really? I mean, really? I practically have a Twitter app implanted in my brain to communicate with customers and this guy doesn't even have a published phone number. 3:42 Invented the Kindle. You don't say? Does he think we've never heard of Amazon? 3:58 "Think long term." 4:09, 4:08, 4:07.... 4:32 It may take a long time for your gambits to pay off for shareholders and your company, but I think I've made up my mind: I am outta here as soon as I have enough for that BMW Z4. 4:50 He's willing to be misunderstood. Congratulations. New theory: Bezos holed up in this supervillain lair and watched the Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin press conferences on a loop. Where else would he have learned to paint himself as the martyr when he's a hypersuccessful billionaire? Two, he's so buried the news in this video. "Uh, Jeff, it might be nice if you mentioned somewhere in the first five minutes that you just bought Zappos and why. Just a suggestion." 5:05 "Amazon.toast" More like Zappos.toast. Bezos' history with acquisitions is terrible. Has any of its purchases ever done much of anything for its business? He hasn't mentioned Zappos once. Is he ever going to? 5:15 Still not hitting that full honking laugh. 5:55 Finally! Hey, thanks for mentioning the name of our company. It's not Voldemort, it's Zappos. You're allowed to say it. 6:29 I'm part of that totally unique culture--unique can't be modified. Read much?--why are you regurgitating what I already live and breathe as if I have no idea? 6:38 "Significant asset," by which I mean, I'll be putting Zappos deep in my underground vault. 6:53 "...how important that culture is to Zappos..." by which I mean, we'll be dismantling it. 7:10 "You're in such great hands with Fred, Alfred, and Tony." Too bad they'll all be gone when their deals expire. 7:52 "It's always day 1." Stop. Talking. 8:09 Whew.
Wow, I can't believe it. I'm gonna be rich! Hmm, what's this video with Tony's email announcing that we're going to be part of Amazon. Jeff Bezos is welcoming me into the Amazon family. Cool. What a nice gesture rather than a sterile press release.
:09 Where is Jeff Bezos? Is that his house? :19 Why is Bezos reminiscing about his startup days? He does know that he's not paying $847 million for a company run out of Tony's house with orange extension cables, right? We're a 10-year old company, Jeff! :36 Damn, Bezos is in great shape. Does he do pilates? :41 They couldn't run the vacuum cleaner and the business at the same time? 1:06 My first time hearing Bezos' infamous laugh with him as my boss. Kind of a letdown to be honest. 1:15 "My whole body is covered in scar tissue." TMI!!! Heads up next time, so I can grab my barf bag. 1:26 I hope there weren't any dogs running around Amazon when they had that bell ring every time they got an order. Paging, Dr. Pavlov. 2:00 "Everything I know" by Jeff Bezos. In six minutes. Okaaaaaaaaay. 2:10 Does he always have that flip chart out there on the patio? 2:15 Obsess over customers. He's kidding, right? We know! We do it better than you do! That's why you bought us. 2:53 "Obsessing over customers covers a lot of errors." Does it paper over being a condescending lecturer? Because, come on: I've helped build this company, I love working here, I love our customers, and you're talking to me like Jeff Bezos invented customer service and let me explain to you that it's important. 3:00 "Invent. Really important." Tell me more, Mr. Wizard. Sheesh, this guy's kind of a douche.
3:07: What's Amazon's stock price? $88.79. I have how many stock options that could be converted? Awesome: I'm getting that BMW! 3:18 Seriously, where is Bezos? Did he do this deal from his island compound in the Caribbean? He's like a young Bond villain, with that maniacal cackle and the bald head. 3:30 "Listen to customers." Really? I mean, really? I practically have a Twitter app implanted in my brain to communicate with customers and this guy doesn't even have a published phone number. 3:42 Invented the Kindle. You don't say? Does he think we've never heard of Amazon? 3:58 "Think long term." 4:09, 4:08, 4:07.... 4:32 It may take a long time for your gambits to pay off for shareholders and your company, but I think I've made up my mind: I am outta here as soon as I have enough for that BMW Z4. 4:50 He's willing to be misunderstood. Congratulations. New theory: Bezos holed up in this supervillain lair and watched the Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin press conferences on a loop. Where else would he have learned to paint himself as the martyr when he's a hypersuccessful billionaire? Two, he's so buried the news in this video. "Uh, Jeff, it might be nice if you mentioned somewhere in the first five minutes that you just bought Zappos and why. Just a suggestion." 5:05 "Amazon.toast" More like Zappos.toast. Bezos' history with acquisitions is terrible. Has any of its purchases ever done much of anything for its business? He hasn't mentioned Zappos once. Is he ever going to? 5:15 Still not hitting that full honking laugh. 5:55 Finally! Hey, thanks for mentioning the name of our company. It's not Voldemort, it's Zappos. You're allowed to say it. 6:29 I'm part of that totally unique culture--unique can't be modified. Read much?--why are you regurgitating what I already live and breathe as if I have no idea? 6:38 "Significant asset," by which I mean, I'll be putting Zappos deep in my underground vault. 6:53 "...how important that culture is to Zappos..." by which I mean, we'll be dismantling it. 7:10 "You're in such great hands with Fred, Alfred, and Tony." Too bad they'll all be gone when their deals expire. 7:52 "It's always day 1." Stop. Talking. 8:09 Whew.
Wow, there's two hours of my life that I won't get back anytime soon. Today's epic bore of a keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference signals the problem that Steve Jobs has created as the designated showman/face of Apple. Jobs' rampant control issues and megalomania are so acute that everyone else who works for him sounds like they've never had to address the family dinner table, much less the assembled throng of thousands of Apple developers and the untold millions of fanboys refreshing liveblogs around the world.
Of course, some of these Apple execs have been on the big stage before. But as faceless helpers in the service of King Steve, their charisma deficit has been an asset. I'm surprised Jobs never outfitted them with black sweatshirts with only their first names on them, like the henchman to the supervillains in the 1960s Batman TV series. With Jobs behind the scenes, though, the implications of his claustrophobic management and one-spotlight-only public-relations style has become a massive liability for the company.
First of all, tuck in your shirts, slobs. I understand that the louche millionaire look is a favored one in Silicon Valley, but come on: Even Steve tucks. I know your wives bought you your party shirts for this special occasion, but the execs running the coolest company in the world shouldn't look like stand-ins for the actors in the Flomax commercials.
Second, who approved those graphics inspired by road signs and car dashboards? Not Steve Jobs, I can tell you that. I know times are tough, but getting your graphics from a clip-art gallery still seems like a bit of unnecessary economizing. Somewhere, Steve Ballmer is laughing, "I knew those guys used PowerPoint."
And then there were the glitches. This wasn't the TechCrunch 50 or Demo or one of those conferences featuring nervous entrepreneurs trying to jam in what's important about their company in six minutes to a roomful of influential VCs and press. This is Apple, the only company that could attract a massive audience to watch a feature rollout via liveblog. So if there's even a chance that something could go wrong--like say, during the Pasco demonstration with the balloons--maybe I don't risk it, especially if there are going to be costumes involved.
Could you imagine Steve coming out and saying that he's going to do his famous impression of Bill Nye, the Science Guy and slipping on a lab coat for a skit with some lowly app developer? Exactly. That's the sort of thing Bill Gates used to do to seem human. Who needs that? Jobs must have had a doctor's appointment the day they did the run-through on this presentation.
The takeaway is that Steve Jobs got the immediate gratification he so desperately desired during that decade-long run of adoring keynotes. We all hung on his every word, his every fillip of salesmanship of features that in lesser hands wouldn't have felt all that special. Well, now they're in lesser hands, and that's bad news. Because what felt revolutionary now seems incremental and small.
Get well, Steve. Not because we need you on that stage again—although we do—but because you should spend all your time training your heirs how to put on a show.
"Everyone's surprised by it," admits Eric Bone, a retail VP at SanDisk, the leader in SD cards, when I reached him just after Apple's keynote address wrapped up. Bone did a double take--along with the rest of us--when Apple added an SD card slot to its refreshed line of MacBook Pro laptops today. Apple tends to forgo card slots of any sort, much less one based on a format that it doesn't control.
Why now? "The unibody form factor is extremely thin and so this makes sense in the space they had available." He's also thrilled. "Previously users had to take an extra step and get a reader," he says. "SD cards are now in pretty much every kind of portable hardware."
This is huge news for SanDisk, which has been laboring mightily to communicate that SD cards are for more than just moving images off your camera to your PC. "For this to be in Apple's mainstream notebooks, it sends the message that SD is not just for imaging but for any kind of content transfer. We're trying to communicate that these cards go in multiple places." SanDisk doesn't plan to release any new cards explicitly targeting MacBook Pro users, as it has for netbook owners where limited storage is more of an issue than with the new 15" model and its 250GB hard drive, let's say.
The next big milestone for SanDisk and SD will be if the iPod and iPhone ever add card slots, something that did not happen today (and is unlikely in the near future). When I met with Bone in late May, he expressed frustration that there are "one billion handsets, 75% to 80% of them have slots, but only 15% to 20% of mobile phones users end up using them."
In the meantime, though, "We can't wait to get our hands on one," Bone says. "We want to see what the implementation will look like in the OS, and we want to see the transfer rates." Count us among the many who also want to get our hands on a new MacBook Pro, too, but we have to admit: The card-slot transfer rate won't be the first feature we ogle.
2. More dealflow! IBM will reportedly announce its acquisition of Sun Microsystems on Monday, for approximately $7 billion in stock. “Sun has obviously been a lost child for many years, but they have some great assets,” says one analyst on the deal. Based on that creepy description, did IBM ensnare Sun in an Internet chat room? Will Dateline be there to cover the announcement on Monday? [via The New York Times' Ashlee Vance and Andrew Ross Sorkin and Bloomberg News]
3. The travel industry has devised a clever new strategy to turn its slumping business around: Target the unemployed and furloughed traveler. "Everyone wins," says Roger Dow, president and CEO of the
U.S. Travel Association, an industry-trade group. "Is it the magic bullet that will turn things around for the
industry? Maybe not, but it's a very nice step." Yes, everyone wins, except for the people who run into these pink-slip travelers on vacation and get bummed out, and of course, the unemployed and furloughed blowing money they don't have on leisure trips. [via Los Angeles Times' Hugo Martin]
5. Tropicana sales plunged 20% between January 1 and February 22 this year. Huh. So I guess it wasn't just a bunch of haters on the Internet who didn't like the orange juice's rebranding. [via Advertising Age's Natalie Zmuda]
While you were sleeping, innovation had too much to drink and bought a bunch of stuff he didn't need. Here's today's innovation news:
1. Can you read me now? Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam told attendees at the CTIA Wireless 2009 show that "four or five" e-book readers are in the company's labs, signaling that Kindle-like devices, much like netbooks, are likely to be future offerings from your cell-phone carrier. I'd tell you more about how wireless carriers are going to reinvent their businesses, but I'm about to go into a tunnel. [via PC World's Yardena Arar via Techmeme]
2. Uber-Maverick Mark Cuban admirably gripes that "discussion of executive pay never includes whether or not the executive has been good enough to preempt or prevent layoffs." He revives his idea that to fix CEO compensation--and avoid massive layoffs at profitable companies merely to juice company stock--we need to pay CEOs in cash that's 100% expensable in the quarter it's paid. [via Blog Maverick's Mark Cuban]
4. Retailers are using free alcohol to get men to shop like women. Finally! Because being blackout drunk is your only excuse for spending $200 on jeans. [via WSJ's Ray A. Smith]
5. There are so many green certification labels--more than 300--and the standards behind them are so nebulous that they're rapidly becoming meaningless. "I joke and say, 'I could buy some of these companies a case of beer, and they'd give us a certification,'" says the owner of a carpet-cleaning franchisor. Well, only if the person in charge of certifications is a guy, then, yes, sure. Too bad he's not also selling men's sportswear. [via WSJ's Gwendolyn Bounds]
2. Hollywood is succeeding in this economy, with movie box office up 12% over this same period last year, and the industry gearing up for a big summer--Terminator, anyone?--at the ShoWest convention for theater operators. Not only are the movies better, but the theaters seem to be trying harder too. AMC Theaters CEO Gerry Lopez, a Starbucks veteran, wants to fix the long-stale moviegoing experience with restaurant service (dinner and a movie!), opening up theaters to show communal events like the Final Four, and of course, "enhanced" concessions, including espresso. Because hyperalert and jittery is the ideal way to enjoy the latest CGI effects in 3-D. [via AP and Los Angeles Times' Richard Verrier]
3. If we've learned anything in life, it's that marketers care about consumers as people. Witness the rash of quasi-sympathetic programs for people who lose their job from Hyundai, clothier Jos. A. Bank, Walgreens, and others. "If you're in a job transition, you have to grab for all the gusto you can," says one laid-off worker who convinced Franklin Covey to give day planners to the unemployed. (Nothing says you're part of the 21st Century workforce quite like a Day Planner.) He continues, "I'm just waiting for Steve Jobs to say I've got a new Mac computer coming." Keep dreaming, you crazy dreamer. Save the date! [via Chicago Tribune's Sandra M. Jones]
5. April Fools' Day is upon us, and oh, the hilarity as the Internet unleashes its inner eight-year old. TechCrunch's Michael Arrington very drily recaps all the hijinks thus far. British newspaper The Guardian will publish every story as a tweet? Ha! It's funny because it's true. YouTube's upside down? Stop, you're killing me. No, really. Please stop. You are, in fact, draining my will to live. [via TechCrunch's Michael Arrington]
Christina Davidson at TheAtlantic.com is on a recession road trip (fun!), and this week, she stopped into a comedy club in Kansas City to check on the 
Second, who approved those graphics inspired by road signs and car dashboards? Not Steve Jobs, I can tell you that. I know times are tough, but getting your graphics from a clip-art gallery still seems like a bit of unnecessary economizing. Somewhere, Steve Ballmer is laughing, "I knew those guys used PowerPoint."
Could you imagine Steve coming out and saying that he's going to do his famous impression of Bill Nye, the Science Guy and slipping on a lab coat for a skit with some lowly app developer? Exactly. That's the sort of thing Bill Gates used to do to seem human. Who needs that? Jobs must have had a doctor's appointment the day they did the run-through on this presentation.
