Everybody loves the Old Spice viral campaign. It’s fresh, it’s funny, and it isn’t selling any more Old Spice. In fact, sales have fallen. Oops.

While there is little doubt about the viral hit’s  popularity – the official version has racked up 12.2 million impressions on YouTube - sales of Red Zone After Hours Body Wash have fallen by 7%.

Maybe the problem is, as Jezebel suggests, that it takes more than a funny viral campaign to shift many years of negative connotations, or that the target audience of young women simply don’t buy shower gel for their boyfriends.

The YouTube response vids were still inspired, though.

Update, 25 July: PR Week reports an overall 107% increase in Old Spice body wash sales, based on figures from Procter & Gamble.

Me, on the iPhone 4 Antennagate:

Apple has arguably the most loyal fans of any firm, and if it had addressed their concerns earlier and got them on its side, this supposed scandal would have remained a minor kerfuffle. Look how quickly and how widely fake Jobs emails – “it’s just a phone” – spread. A real one sent to every Apple ID could have stopped the whole thing before it started.

Apple’s holding a press conference to talk about the iPhone 4, presumably to address the ever-worsening signal strength PR mess. I think it’s been blown out of all proportion, but that’s partly Apple’s fault:

Instead of putting their hands up and saying “hey, it’s possible to bridge the antennas at one particular point and that can make the signal drop, but that’s the price you pay for the BEST RECEPTION ON AN IPHONE EVER!” they’ve said that the reason for disappearing bars is “both simple and surprising”.

Presumably it’s simple as in “let’s make something up! Simple!” and surprising as in “we’ll be surprised if anyone believes this”. In Apple PR land an issue that can be fixed with nail polish, a rubber band or a different grip can also be fixed with… software!

Microsoft is “hardcore” about Windows Slates, consumer-focused tablet computers. Me:

The danger here is that Microsoft approaches Windows slate devices from the wrong direction. If Microsoft asks “how can we stuff Windows into an iPad-style device?” rather than “how can we make the most awesome tablet computer ever made, a machine so mind-meltingly incredible that Steve Jobs fills his pants when he sees it?” then all we’ll end up with is a bunch of slightly smaller tablet PCs.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Windows 7, and I quite like tablet PCs. But I like the iPad much, much more. It’s an amazing device, and that’s largely because Apple hasn’t just sawed the keyboard off a MacBook Pro and jumped around the place shouting “and that’s magic!” like a demented Paul Daniels.

It’s easy to mock Apple – and I do – but the App Store’s had an enormous effect on software. So when I say app-y birthday, I mean it.

Being able to pick up apps for a few quid here, a few pence there encourages us to experiment, to forget our favourites when something brighter and better comes along – and that in turn means developers are constantly under pressure to raise their game, to create even better applications. Software hasn’t been this exciting since the online shareware explosion of the nineties.

Or at least, don’t do it if you like using your phone. It’s not just me: we asked Techradar readers for their experiences and it seems that the iPhone 3G and the initial release of iOS 4.0 go together like strawberries and Beelzebub.

Maybe all those new goodies in the OS – the folders, the spell checker, the new APIs – are too ambitious for the 3G, or maybe there’s a leaky app somewhere causing chaos, but 3Gs seem to be encountering problems that aren’t affecting the 3GS.

Of the three 3Gs I personally know of, all three have been slowed down dramatically by the OS upgrade.

You know it makes sense.

The public coffers are empty, and that means we need to make sacrifices. The school leaving age will be reduced to six. Hospitals will no longer treat you unless you’re spurting blood or other fluids. Benefits will be slashed, the unemployed will be forced to eat one another and Wales will be sold to the highest bidder.

So does Britain look like an outtake from The Road, with people chewing on babies and mugging one another for half-chewed Mars bars? Nope. We’re all queuing outside Apple stores, and Vodafone stores, and Orange stores, and Carphone Warehouses.

Last night Apple’s market capitalisation exceeded Microsoft’s for the first time since 1989. I think it’s interesting, not because Apple’s damaging Microsoft but because of the picture the numbers paint.

Since the return of Steve Jobs, Apple has transformed itself, especially since its invention of the iPod: almost overnight, Apple went from being a computer company to a digital music company. The iPod business has probably peaked, but Apple doesn’t mind: it’s changed again to a mobile phone company, and if that business starts to wane then it may turn out to be an iPad company, or a something-else company.

Microsoft, on the other hand, hasn’t really changed at all.

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/apple-beats-microsoft-not-so-fast-fanboys-692510

Me, you know where:

Parents of young children can spot an insincere apology from miles away.

“Sorry,” your tot mumbles, after you find the dog half-shaved and your Xbox full of jam.

“Sorry for what?” you’ll say. “Sorry for shaving the dog and putting jam in your Xbox,” he’ll say, looking at the floor. But he’s lying. He’s only sorry that he didn’t get away with it.

Facebook’s much-reported apology in the Washington Post is a bit like that. “Sorry,” says Mark Zuckerberg. “Sorry for what?” the internet asks.

“Sorry for invading your privacy and making things confusing and stuff,” Zuckerberg says. “Can I have an ice cream now?”

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/why-you-shouldn-t-trust-facebook-s-apology-691803#ixzz0owXMawMm