Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Ken Jennings Pimps Encarta
The longest running contestant on Jeopardy! is going to be pimping Microsoft's latest encyclopedia software, Encarta Premium 2005 according to a BetaNews article. He'll be going around being quizzed by people on a nationwide promotional event. Jennings set a new record after Jeopardy! removed the limitations on how often a contestant can come back after winning... he made it on the show 75 times!
Sadly, I would have to say that was more of a publicity stunt for Microsoft than anything else. Jennings could have really used his knowledge to promote much nicer and freer encyclopedias, like Wikipedia. It would be safe to say that doing something for Wikipedia would have given him a much more positive public appearance than signing up to be Microsoft Encarta's "spokesperson". It would have also gotten people less likely to even know about it to give it a try. Alas, at least you'll have the opportunity and try to outsmart him by looking up some obscure fact in any encyclopedia and then quizzing him on it.
¶ 3:09 AM
The longest running contestant on Jeopardy! is going to be pimping Microsoft's latest encyclopedia software, Encarta Premium 2005 according to a BetaNews article. He'll be going around being quizzed by people on a nationwide promotional event. Jennings set a new record after Jeopardy! removed the limitations on how often a contestant can come back after winning... he made it on the show 75 times!
Sadly, I would have to say that was more of a publicity stunt for Microsoft than anything else. Jennings could have really used his knowledge to promote much nicer and freer encyclopedias, like Wikipedia. It would be safe to say that doing something for Wikipedia would have given him a much more positive public appearance than signing up to be Microsoft Encarta's "spokesperson". It would have also gotten people less likely to even know about it to give it a try. Alas, at least you'll have the opportunity and try to outsmart him by looking up some obscure fact in any encyclopedia and then quizzing him on it.
¶ 3:09 AM
