It seems that Microsoft is pulling out all the stops now. In the video below, you see the latest in their attempt to halt the decline of Internet Explorer’s market share. In the video, Dolly Parton (yes, that Dolly Parton) praises Internet Explorer 8 for its webslices feature. She does this after a cliche remark about how little she knows when it comes to computers.
But I have to ask this: is she really the best choice for such an endorsement? Considering when Parton was in her peak years of popularity, I would say that the people most likely to care about her recommendations are exactly the people who have no idea what YouTube is. “U-Tube? Is that kind of like a pipe bent in half?” On top of that, how likely are they to care about webslices (the primary focus of the video) anyway?
To me, this endorsement says: “I have no idea what that interweb thing is, but Microsoft paid me to say Internet Explorer was great, so what the hell! So whether you’re a redneck, a retiree, or just lack them ‘computer skills’, give IE8 a try!”