Yeah no kidding - it was just wrong on sooo many levels. What's even worse is the sexting promo video that Micro$oft actually pulled because it was so creepy people complained about it.
http://www.neowin.net/news/kin-promo-video-edited-after-039sexting039-complaints
Not sure who the marketing genius behind all this is ... but what a dismal failure. Even so without the horrid creepy marketing the phones are such useless piles of junk the Kin was doomed anyway.


>I thought the commercial where the older guy answered the door was downright scary. I wonder how many child advocacy groups protested that one?
>
>
>>The Micro$oft Kin was a joke. First of all the two devices were ultra-lame. Secondly - that had to be the DUMBEST marketing scheme I've ever seen. comercial 1: Girl goes to meet her new "social friend" in person (images of 12 year old girl texting on her phone) only to find out he's to old (40 year old man answers door and girl walks away all disappointed. comercial 2: Guy can't decide who too keep on his social Kin list - so he goes out with x girlfriend (images of annoyed pissed off looking girl as guy snaps pictures of her for his upload to website) - and then boy decides to axe her from list.
>>Now I've seen some stupid crap in my lifetime - but aside from lawn darts this is about the dumbest off them all.
>>
>>Edit: And we thought VFP marketing was bad...ha!
>>
>>>My former employer tells the world:
>>>
>>>"Microsoft's failures with the KIN phone (only two months on the market, less than 10,000 phones sold) are well-known to this community. Now the NY Times goes farther, quoting Tim O'Reilly: 'Microsoft is totally off the radar of the cool, hip, cutting-edge software developers.' Microsoft has acknowledged that they have lost young developers to the lures of free software. 'We did not get access to kids as they were going through college,' acknowledged Bob Muglia, the president of Microsoft's business software group, in an interview last year. 'And then, when people, particularly younger people, wanted to build a start-up, and they were generally under-capitalized, the idea of buying Microsoft software was a really problematic idea for them.' Microsoft's program to seed start-ups with its software for free requires the fledgling companies to meet certain guidelines and jump through hoops to receive software — while its free competitors simply allow anyone to download products off a website with the click of a button."
>>>
>>>At first I was sort of offended. I guess I'm not hip still supporting VFP apps (but I also sell python apps). In fact I bet most of the VFP world is no longer hip.
>>>
>>>FYI: Tim now claims he did not say "off the radar". I guess that means he did say the rest!
>>>
>>>Johnf