Clearly meant to have a lively, "fun" feel, the painful video is so over-the-top bad we thought it first it must be a hoax. But Microsoft's in-house blogger has been touting these events, which are being organized by an apparently well-established marketing company that specializes in getting people to shill products to their friends at sketchy "house parties." Said marketing company owns the YouTube channel where this video appeared.

Microsoft has a track record of tone deaf commercials, but this marketing video somehow hits a new low. Maybe it's the way there's an undercurrent of tension and seething disdain even among the hired professional actors, as in this scene, about three minutes into the video:

Middle-aged white lady: I led an overview of some of my favorite Windows 7 features... It took, like, 10 minutes [approving murmurs]... It was totally, informal, like, everyone just kind of crowded around the computer in the kitchen [hearty laughter].

...After my overview, I went straight to an activity.

Older white lady: Oh, you went straight to the activity? I let everyone fool around with "Snap" [a Windows 7 feature] for a little while! [Uproarious laughter.]

Young black man: Me too! I did the same!

Middle aged white lady: I love Snap!

Older white lady: And then we started an activity maybe 30 minutes later.

Middle-aged white lady: Well, either way works, right? You figure out what your guests want, and play it by ear. In any event, we each did an activity, or two.

Angry party-pooper geek guy (white): Uh I did three activities. Ya.

Middle-aged white lady: Oooooh.

Young black man: Well, excuse me. [Snickering laughter.]

Middle-aged white lady: That's great! [Laughter] The activities each have you talk for a minute or so, and then...

Angry party-pooper geek guy (white): [Frowns, angrily slams down drink, walks over to get more food and stew in silent rage.]

Or maybe it's the way the video undercuts the very product it purports to be touting, by emphasizing the you should actually install Microsoft's operating system at least 48 hours before your... uh, install party. As in this scene:

Angry party-pooper geek guy (white): Of course the first thing you want to do is install Windows 7, right? [Boisterous, awkward laughter.] Now make sure you do that a couple of days in advance of the party. [Laughter silenced.] Call customer service if you have any questions. [Emphatically, this time, waving arms:] Got to play with Windows 7 before the party.

True. Nothing scotches an awesome Windows 7 party like catastrophic data loss, the Blue Screen of Death and impotent cursing. Person-to-person marketing might work for fun products like cosmetics, or cheap inoffensive gear like Tupperware. But operating system installs? Not fun, not trivial, and not the sort of thing that's going to liven up your kitchen. Device drivers? Crashes? Partitioning? Pass the tequila.

[via the Telegraph]

UPDATE: And of course, the parodies have already begun:

There was a certain raffish charm in Google's "beta" fetish. Six months ago, nearly half of its products carried the geeky monicker, meaning "not ready for prime time." Google was charging real money for premium versions of some of the products, but most people didn't pay. So whenever the system went down, the company could shrug its shoulders and effectively say, "things happen."

Now Google will have to issue slightly more abject non-apologies. On the bright side, all of those people who have been waiting to adopt GMail once its out of beta can now sign up. Get ready to finally see some "@gmail.com" addresses in your inbox! (Ahem.)

Reached by phone, Kaplan insists he didn't create it for his own needs. (Good thing, as his lawyer fiancée might have words.) He was just indulging in a month-long Twitter programming binge which led him to create a Twitter typing test, a Twitter domain-name registration tool, and now, Twitter flirting.

Flirt140 lets Twitter users find others in a geographic area. You can specify that you're looking for men, women, or both. (How progressive!) Just one problem: Twitter, unlike, say, Facebook, doesn't collect information on users' sexual orientation. I asked Kaplan if he had invented Twitter gaydar. "No," he admitted. Flirt140 will register people's sexual preference and then display appropriate targets in searches as it collects more users. But for now, Twitterers looking for gender-suitable romance will have to take their chances. We sense a sitcom in the making.

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking the Palm Pre, the long-overdue smartphone unveiled today in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, is an obvious iPhone wannabe, with a similar shape, a touchscreen, and a fancy built-in Web browser.

It was built, too, by a cast of Apple hand-me-downs: Chairman Jon Rubinstein was formerly Jobs's right-hand man, and Palm's campaign of hiring away Apple employees grew so large, and so obvious, that Jobs is said to have called Rubinstein and screamed at him. Palm is backed by Elevation Partners, a private equity firm where former Apple CFO Fred Anderson now works. (The rivalry might explain why Jobs is no longer seen palling around with Bono, who's also a partner at Elevation.)

But the most glaring way in which Palm has rebuilt himself in Apple's image is in its executives' raging superiority complex. Take this exchange between AllThingsD blogger Peter Kafka and Palm CEO Ed Colligan:

The biggest unknown is price, which went unmentioned during the demo. My assumption is that Palm would try to take market share by coming in significantly lower than the $200 or so Apple wants for its iPhone. But when I ran that theory by Palm CEO Ed Colligan, he looked at me liked I’d peed on his rug. “Why would we do that when we have a significantly better product,” he asked, then walked away.

Jobs could not have put it better himself. But Palm, which has struggled for years, has far more to prove before Colligan and Rubinstein can act so cock of the walk.

(Photo by Corinne Schulze/CNET News)

Why, then, are so many publications writing about Tip'd? Let me spell it out for you: The community director of Tip'd, Muhammad Saleem, is a top user on Digg. His heavy usage means that his votes tend to carry more weight on the site. Would some Web writers cover new venture in the hopes that he might feel inclined to Digg their stories down the road? Stranger things have happened.

With video and text chat allowing managers to check in on employees and feed them scripts, as well as cheap international calling and archiving conversations, it can work as a cheap and easy tool for managing remote customer-service centers to close those deals made on eBay and keep the credit card charges flowing into PayPal. In other words, it's about lubricating "transaction friction" by increasing buyer confidence and decreasing credit card charge-backs and complaints. Now if only there was a country with lots of English speakers and really low wages.

Rcrd Lbl has signed contracts giving it the right to distribute a handful of songs from 40 to 50 bands, including some, but not all, of Downtown Records' artists. For instance, there are no plans for Downtown's marquee act, Gnarls Barkley (the duo behind last year's alternative hip-hop hit "Crazy"), to contribute music to Rcrd Lbl. On the other hand, the hot indie rock band Cold War Kids and high-profile rapper Mos Def, both signed to Downtown, will have music on the site.

Rcrd Lbl's artist contracts are unusual — chiefly in that they make the company the exclusive distributor of a specific number of songs, not for an act's entire musical output, as is the case in traditional record deals. "It's a blog," says Mr. Deutsch. "We're not necessarily trying to tie you up for your fifth album."

Big-name advertisers have generally shied away from even the most influential music blogs, since most of the music they include is posted without permission. Thanks to their involvement with Rcrd Lbl, the company says it is launching in the black.

Artists with songs on Rcrd Lbl won't get a cut of advertising associated with their music; they'll get advances Mr. Deutsch characterized as modest for each song they give the label. These advances range from $500 a song for the least established artists, according to people who work in the music industry, and escalate for bigger names to around $5,000. Rcrd Lbl will divide with its artists any money that it makes from licensing their music to television shows, movies or TV commercials.

RCRD LBL is pitching itself as "music we like," but obviously that term is a bit of sleight-of-hand; it's more like "music we like from artists and labels who are willing to work with us." (Although I do have to tip my hat at them coming out of the gate with a totally utterly blogger-approved collaboration between Justice and Spank Rock and Mos Def. Way to get that elbo.ws love!) It's like the old promo-track trick used by promo companies all over the Internet, but with money behind it and the dreaded term "exclusive MP3" being thrown around more than usual.

In a way, this take on monetized music blogging reminds me of the Radiohead experiment, in that both Rojas and Radiohead are already pre-existing brands who have some loyalty; Rojas' gadget-blogging background will probably earn him some extra love/eyeballs from the "free music at all costs" Digg crowd. But as Glenn at Coolfer noted in his ruminations on In Rainbows yesterday, trying to get people to change their music-acquisition habits is a trick. Sure, members of the MP3-blog-reading crowd will add RCRD LBL to their RSS feeds. But will enough regular-Joe music fans be willing to change their music-ferreting habits—and take risks on new artists—to sustain the advances paid out to bands? Or will people just wait for the MP3s offered by the site to show up on their favorite torrent tracker?

RCRD LBL [Official site]
Music Test: Can a Firm Profit From Free Tunes? [WSJ]

Riya today launched Like.com, a photo-based shopping site that lets users click one handbag, shoe, or other accessory and find similar ones.

Remember the story behind this startup: A while back, this startup was about to sell to Google. But marketing rep Tara Hunt and outside blogger Robert Scoble wrote too much about the deal on their blogs. The coverage spooked Google, who backed away from the talks, deciding it was better off developing its own image search. Riya decided it would take over the image search world on its own.

So why launch Like? Isn't it a disappointing result for a startup with such grand aspirations?

Live does two things:

1. It may bring in a little income. On its own, not so much — it's an ugly site to surf through, so it makes an uncomfortable shopping experience — but Riya could license the technology to other shopping sites.
2. It may bring in a buyer. Riya needed a publicity boost to attract buyers — Yahoo, for example, could plug this tool into Flickr.

Like.com [By Riya]

The launch is part of a busy week for Google, which launched a literacy portal today, an experimental search site a few days ago, and a new version of Google Groups this week, and is about to open Google Gadgets to outside developers.

According to a journalist, Google's new product will launch already larger than the two main source code search engines, Koders and Krugle.

• Best bet: iLounge Live, with an auto-refreshing page listing the announcements in no-nonsense infobites.
• iLounge IRC, a chat room for the event. Have some fun, walk in there and say "*yawn* So how is this anywhere near as cool as the Microsoft Zune?"
• Superblogs Gizmodo and Engadget pay the price of success — both are sputtering as their servers struggle with the traffic spike.

• Teach the controversy! ABC News quotes a Jupiter Research analyst: "Even when people think they know the story, they don't know the whole story. And sometimes, they're completely wrong." Gee, thanks for the insight. [ABC News]
• PC World takes it further: "Last Chance to Be Wrong About Apple's News!" [PC World]
• Bloomberg News just goes ahead and predicts Disney films for sale on iTunes (duh) and a full-screen iPod (okay, we all secretly predict that). [Bloomberg]
• Why just Disney films? No one else would agree to Jobs's demand for two flat rates. [UPI]

Need a page to refresh all morning until the announcement hits the wires? Try The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Engadget, Gizmodo, Mac Observer, or Macworld.

Is it just me, or does this design feel like the lovechild of TechCrunch and GigaOM? But, like, smarter? First, the layout is useful and chock-full of info. Second, VentureBeat is refreshingly ad-free, save for a plug for site developers Rubyred Labs.

After the jump, we dig into the site, and there's a dollop of gossip at the bottom.

We assume this will change soon, leaving us bitter and disillusioned, because VentureBeat has some real original content here — a break from the identical articles of its main competitors. The featured story is just a roundup right now, but owner-writer Matt Marshall proves in other entries that he's still more insightful and engaging than other tech business blogs.

Everyone will notice the contributors' columns (good way to diversify without hiring writers, Matt!) but also check out the easily-missed news on the left. Personally, though, my favorite bit is the "deal map," outlining the shape of the tech boom in the Valley with little Google-Maps markers.

Marshall, by the way, built SiliconBeat on his own dime for ages; finally sick of the Mercury News, he's doing his own thing. It all came out in the comment thread on SiliconBeat, where Marshall wrote about the new site's name:

well, regarding the name, it was a tough one. i felt ownership rights [to SiliconBeat], because i came up with the name, bought the url, blogged on my own time, etc.

the merc felt differently. the good part is, we kept talking about it. we came to an arrangement, both sides agreed to drop the name for the time being. can't really say more, but let's just say the url won't be on the market any time soon.

VentureBeat [Official site]

But I visited the new site anyway, and saw this on the front page:

The investors must be so proud.

this is by us [Official site]

The basis of Web Worker Daily, GigaOM blog kingpin Om Malik's latest title, is that in an increasingly web-based, wireless world, with bloggers and web workers dispersed in diverse geographic pockets, it's becoming more difficult to mobilize the workforce. The site, which launched on Labor Day (cute timing, Om), is meant as a forum in which "2.0 users" share knowledge of technological systems and workspaces.

Part of Malik's inspiration for the blog comes from Greg Olsen, Co-Founder of Coghead Software whose fondness for expressions like "jumping the shark" and "going bedouin" when referring to start-ups that perish by way of golden temples wears a little thin at times. But we can relate to the pragmatic significance of knowing where to fill up a good cup of joe, as told by Jackson West. The Gawker Media alum and GigaOM contributor is the site's new lead writer.

WWD shows promise — unless Jackson West forces us to point a gun at his head and scream, "Say 'Bedouin' again! I double dare you, motherfucker, say 'Bedouin' one more time!"

Web Worker Daily [Official site]

— Beth Gottfried

[Update: Since we wrote this, the curtain's been torn down and Da Blunt appears to be open for business.]

See it here, folks, 'cause it's password-protected now. This is the pre-launch edition of Om Malik's new blog, Da Blunt, which was live and public until late last evening. The Web 2.0 wise guys at the Supr.c.ilio.us blog spotted an incoming link from dablunt.com and followed it to this remarkably unprotected site. I snapped a pic before Om and his team hid it under a password.

The writer for this new extension of the GigaOM network is, as the screencap shows, Jackson West, blogger extraordinaire and former contributor to Valleywag's big androgynous sibling Fleshbot. He's a man of many talents, able to draw clever connections between literary references, name-dropping of the San Fran hoi polloi, and allusions to Saturday morning cartoons.

As for answering the $5-million-in-venture-capital question, Da Blunt is about pop culture, high culture, and all those things the "You Don't Know Jack" game claimed to be.

And as for the design, don't worry, Om assures me Da Blunt will look prettier than this when it really goes live.

Da Blunt [now password protected]
What's GigaOm Smoking? [Supr.c.ilio.us]

Thog write headline. Thog no match subject to predicate. And Thog proud to have Thog's work on PC World front page on important day.

PC World [Front page]

Click through, refresh the page like crazy, and be the first on your block to see forums, a customized home page, and those little "share this" buttons everyone makes so the kids can go viral.

PCWorld.com [Refresh! Refresh!]

Update: Local times may vary.

You can just make out the Digg-style vote button on the left. How original! [Fabz on Flickr]

Just too fuzzy to make out the URL. [Fabz on Flickr]

Which is wiser for AOL: launching just after Digg version 3 renders it redundant on June 22? Or just before?

Photos: NNLaunch [Flickr]
In the war room... [Calacanis.com]
Earlier: Scoop: Exclusive screenshots reveal Digg v3 will cover all news [Valleywag]