'Gmail Man', 'Email Intervention' Revives Spoof Videos of the Past
An e-mail battle seems to be raging between tech giants Google and Microsoft with the airing of two videos earlier this week that hinted us about other battle grounds where tech companies are currently fighting 'the internet space dominion' war.
Google aired a video on its "Email Intervention" campaign that encourages current Gmail users to do their friends and family a favor by saving them from out-dated email services and inviting them over to Gmail, which provides free phone calls and video chatting.
Google's video may be directed towards users of other popular e-mail services like Microsoft's Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail although the video doesn't explicitly say so.
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On the other hand, according to ZDNet people working for internal communications at Microsoft produced a "Gmail man" spoof video that seemed to be intended and aired for the thousands of attendees at Microsoft Global Exchange sales conference on July 20.
The mockery video however was apparently and "coincidentally" leaked and made available through YouTube this week featuring the "Gmail man" who is seen shuffling through, opening and reading private mail in order to identify key words that may help him offer a relevant ad to the recipient. After the recipient realizes of the Gmail man's illicit behavior she asks "Isn't that wrong?" to which the Gmail man responds "Who cares?”
The video seemed to be intended to pep-up sales teams working with Microsoft's Office 365 and make it clear how the Office 365 service doesn't scan the user's email to produce unsolicited ads like Gmail.
Various media outlets have tried to reach out to Microsoft, but haven't received any comments.
This spoof video follows other videos that have clearly exhibited the existing rivalry between tech companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Google and to a lesser degree Yahoo.
The following are memorable mockery videos or responses to thereof that fairly captured the growing rivalry between the companies and their services during the '00-'10 decade.
