I thought so. It shows a good way to turn a mistake into a positive PR story, valuable for startups to understand imo.
As others have pointed out the cost of this for Microsoft is miniscule compared to both the positive press from Consumerist and the, likely, positive word of mouth of the person who got the extra X-Box.
I'll admit it isn't the 'normal' fare of "Startup X lands 90 kajillion dollars to build Facebook-GroupOn-Twitter Mashup 2.0 in Ruby/Erlang/Go!!" or "New proof of Tychonoff's theorem", but you know, everyone has different tastes and I do love me some variety of time wasting stories to read while my code compiles.
I doubt it, it doesn't substantially add to any discussion except to indicate you feel the discussion is pointless (unlike everyone else contributing).
For people that see something they are not interested in they can always flag the submission as abusive (though that is a bit extreme) or simply, you know, not click on the article/discussion link.
I see lots of stories on the front page that don't interest me, I simply don't read them or upvote them. If the community at large disagrees with my assesment and chooses to upvote/comment on the stories, so be it.
Comments
Does this really need to be discussed on HN?
I thought so. It shows a good way to turn a mistake into a positive PR story, valuable for startups to understand imo.
As others have pointed out the cost of this for Microsoft is miniscule compared to both the positive press from Consumerist and the, likely, positive word of mouth of the person who got the extra X-Box.
I'll admit it isn't the 'normal' fare of "Startup X lands 90 kajillion dollars to build Facebook-GroupOn-Twitter Mashup 2.0 in Ruby/Erlang/Go!!" or "New proof of Tychonoff's theorem", but you know, everyone has different tastes and I do love me some variety of time wasting stories to read while my code compiles.
I am now curious. Is there ever a "grumble Why is this on HN?" that is upvoted?
I doubt it, it doesn't substantially add to any discussion except to indicate you feel the discussion is pointless (unlike everyone else contributing).
For people that see something they are not interested in they can always flag the submission as abusive (though that is a bit extreme) or simply, you know, not click on the article/discussion link.
I see lots of stories on the front page that don't interest me, I simply don't read them or upvote them. If the community at large disagrees with my assesment and chooses to upvote/comment on the stories, so be it.
Occasionally, yes, but you don't see it because such a story will be flagged off the front page shortly after.