Howard's phone talk infomercial???

Palm tries to recruit Howard Stern to shill ‘Pre’
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 05:50 PM EDT
Palm is trying "to recruit one of the biggest mouths out there: Howard Stern," Larry Dignan reports for ZDNet.

MacDailyNews Take: Howard's mouth is still just as large, but his volume has decreased drastically from his terrestrial radio days. The fact is, he's dropped off the cultural radar since his move to Sirius. Leave it to Palm to chase a mouthpiece without a mass audience just as they've promised to abandon their buyout bait on a failing carrier (Sprint) that's lost about as many subscribers as the amount of listeners Stern shed in his move to satellite radio.

Dignan continues, "Stern is in the market for a phone and has been a loyal Treo user. He still has a Treo, but is embarrassed to show it given the technology is so old. In other words, Stern is the perfect Palm customer. He’s been fiercely loyal, but has nothing new to get excited about until now... In a nutshell, Stern is very publicly auditioning phones. He’s trying a BlackBerry, but has ruled out the iPhone due to a lack of a keyboard."

MacDailyNews Take: Luddites who cling to their plastic chicklets all have one thing in common: They've never really used an iPhone. Howard, in about a week, you'd be typing faster with an iPhone than on any tiny plastic keyboard ever made.

Dignan continues, "Palm is getting Stern a demo Pre delivered to his home with a hands-on tutorial and then taking the top secret device away. 'They’re going to show me the Pre and then take it away. They’re trying to build excitement for this thing. If people don’t buy this I don’t see how Palm keeps going,' said Stern."

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: So, they're going to demo their iPhone knock-off to someone who's never used an iPhone. It's highly likely that he'll be wowed. It's like showing Windows to someone who's never used a Mac; ooh, isn't Microsoft oh-so-innovative! Stern will then go on his show and tell everyone how "amazing" this "Pre" thing is and everyone with an iPhone will laugh. Hopefully, some will call in to tell him he sounds like an idiot.

All that said, as longtime readers know, we love Howard Stern.

And, hey, yet another demo, Palm? Doesn't that thing work well enough to put into users' hands, yet?


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