Valleywag
You'd expect to see all kinds of corporate blowjobs in a tech trade like Linux Journal. But an ad about blowjobs? Unlikely, I know, but this one, showing an attractive woman and promising that QSol's servers, like her, "won't go down on you," appeared in the magazine's August 2007 issue. It has, of course, attracted the attention of several blogs, including our sibling sites Gawker and Jezebel. But there's one overlooked fact in most of the coverage.
This ad is completely unoriginal. Linux Journal ran an almost identical ad seven years ago, in its November 2000 issue. And the 1.0 version stirred up just as much controversy — so much that the magazine apologized for and promised to pull from any future editions of the magazine. Promises, promises.
Obviously QSol ran the ad to titillate and shock, and get talked about — and from that perspective, the company has succeeded. But then there's the quality of the ad itself. Leave aside the broken promises, and the ad's tiresome execution. Why would you want to buy servers from a company that clearly hasn't had a new idea in seven years?
Comments
It's her loss, I've got 99.999% uptime.
Pfft, it wasn't even an original joke seven years ago... www.unfortu.net has been saying the same thing since the mid-nineties.
I'm ganna recompile my kernel all over that face!
zing
It's a stupid ad -- promising that something great will be withheld from you is no way to sell stuff. But then, I'm not an ad weasel, so what do I know?
Linux Journal published a BLATANTLY SEXIST (albeit vaguely funny) ad in its August, 2007, which belong, according to the site feministing.com, in the "Ads That Really Suck" file. Worse, the ad is a repeat of another ad that appeared seven years ago, also in Linux Journal.
I knew there'd be linux nerds making linux innuendos in the comments here. I think this is proof positive that this ad works.
Maybe if linux fanboys would stop putting their propaganda on stumbleupon and digg and actually trying to meet babes, they wouldn't have to be marketed to in this way
Hello, sexist ad. What, females can't be Linux Admins too? (Not to assume we're all straight, but those of us who prefer men have no interest in the woman in the ad.) Not to mention, I purchased a large sum of servers from QSOL a few years back and had a very bad customer experience when many of them failed due to a known problem that they failed to notify us of. This is the first time I'd seen this ad, but it made me laugh... thanks.
I could see this ad working well if the execution were better what an average first-year graphic design student would do here.
And Qsol? The 1970s called. They wanted to know where you got the idea for that bitchin' logo.
Sex sells. Bad ads that talk about sex sell more than good ads without sex. Life is harsh campers.
@White Trash Mom: True, that. Ditto for provocative screen names.
This ad, for QSOL server appliances, is a neatly-condensed illustration of women's place in technology, as regarded by technologically-placed men. It's to be found in the pages of—shocker—Linux Journal, which promised not to run the ad again after its first appearance in 2000.
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