Jeopardy! Whiz Becomes Encarta Spokesman

Ant writes "BetaNews' story says Microsoft tapped Jeopardy! king Ken Jennings, who recently finished his 75-game run on the show, to become the spokesman for its Encarta product line. Jennings will embark on a nationwide media tour called 'Quiz the Whiz' that challenges news desks to stump the human encyclopedia with questions from Microsoft's Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005."

Wow...

[codesurfer]

Right after his "loss" on the show. I still say it was a throw. Interesting marketing (and I bet it'll be successful) ploy for MS, I just wish Ken had thrown his popularity behind the open source community.

Encarta... Who Cares?

[MBCook]

I remember when CD drives first became popular in computers, encyclopedias on CD were a big deal and Encarta was very popular. It was on a CD encyclopedia (under Win 3.1) that I saw the famous footage of the Hindenburg disaster for the first time that I can remember (that was also the first video clip I can ever remember seeing on a computer).

But I saw Encarta in a computer store the other day and thought... so what? With the internet now common and simple to use to find things (thanks to Google and it's forefathers), why would I want to pay for an encyclopedia on CD/DVD?

As a promotion goes, it's a good idea, except it seems like trying to sell horse & buggy carts to 1920s urbanites. It's a product that is past it's prime and will dissapear soon.

PS: Ken Jennins, works as a programmer in Utah, hired by MS. I can make a conspiracy out of that :)

Why Encarta?

[LGagnon]

Give him a real challenge: ask him questions from Wikipedia. [wikipedia.org] Encarta doesn't have half the information that Wikipedia has.

I agree.

[pb]

He must have thrown it. He got both Daily Doubles, and drew a blank on both of them. Then he answers "FedEx"? And then what's worse, that smile he has afterwards. No, subconsciously or not, he could have won it and didn't.

Of course the next thing to look into--were people betting on when he was going to lose?

Questions for KenJen

[xmedar]

What causes Pip in poultry?
How old is Mae West?
Who was the last British heavyweight champion of the world?
How far is Winnipeg from Montreal?
When did Florence Nightingale die?
What is the height of the Empire State Building? What was the date of General Gordon's death?

and last but not least

What are the Thirty-Nine Steps? Come on! Answer up! What are the Thirty-Nine Steps?

Re:Wow...

[NotAnotherReboot]

Right after his "loss" on the show. I still say it was a throw.

Indeed- take a look at the final question from the interview; it makes you...wonder.

I don't consider my last show a loss -- I definitely don't consider this experience something I'm walking away a loser from (laughs). I did feel some relief, as it's been a long and exciting experience for me -- I'm looking forward to spending lots of time with my family.

ya know

[Heem]

Jennings is a progammer. I'm sure he reads slashdot. So - how about it Ken? Where are ya?

Re:PC Encyclopedias

[1u3hr]

Do a lot of people even use these anymore? I figured by now, the internet would have overtaken these completely.

I do, but not Encarta. Brittanica is the gold standard. As for the Internet; sure, it's what I use for 99% of my fact checking, but if I actually need some background and something I can feel is authoritative (rather than a say a Wiki that anyone with an axe to grind can distort), I use a real encyclopedia.

Re:PC Encyclopedias

[optimusNauta]

Mostly I would agree. The only time I would use an encyclopedia would be if I am in a library and I need a quick factsheet on something. Wikipedia has pretty much replaced all my software encyclopedia needs. Another victory for Free (as in Freedom) stuff.

Re:Encarta

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Encarta isn't really 'fine' at all. It started out as a seriously discount paper encyclopedia, and it hasn't improved much at all. For example, take the biographical entry for Alexander Hamilton. It correctly puts a question mark next to the birt date, but then completely fails to discuss the controversy surrounding the birth date. Just recently, Wikipedia was dinged by a reviewer for exactly this sort of shallowness. Wikipedia fixed the problem the very same day the review came out.

The original paper encyclopedia Microsoft used as a source was Funk and Wagnall's New World Encyclopedia. It's not published any more. They used to be sold in supermarkets for $0.99 for the first volume, and $5 for the remaining volumes. I can't tell you how many people in the rinky dink town I grew up in had just the first volume of that encyclopedia, which they got for a buck at the grocery store. Lots of biology science papers were written on the ecology of the aardvark in those days.

So why did he do it?

[marktaw.com]

Why did Ken Jennings - multi millionaire - decide to hook up with Microsoft to promote a less-than stellar product. Is it...

Because he really believes in it?

Because he loves the celebrity and thinks spokesperson is the next logical step in his career?

Or because Microsoft has agreed to pay all the taxes on his Jeopardy winnings?

Slashdot Interview...

[bje2]

KJ would make an excellend slashdot interview...someone shoulud work on that...

Re:Encarta... Who Cares?

[AvitarX]

Well when I first used a computer encyclapedia it was a 1x CD ROM. The net is much faster for me now, but many people don't have broadband, so that sound clip of Beethoven may be a long time in coming.

If you are stuck with dial up (especialy 14.4k) and want to see pictures and hear sounds and see movies about the stuff you are looking up the CD still has it's place. The slowest CD drives you can find operational are, at 8 mbps, fast enough to be a good broadband connection (8x arbitraily decided as the slowest still around).

If there was a good (not encarta) cheap (not Britanica) encyclapedia that I could install totally to my HD and not worry about the CD (making it as convenient as broadband) I would buy it. probably pay 3 figures for it too, and willingly subscribe for automatically downloaded updates.

Fails Marketing 101

[droleary]

Jennings will embark on a nationwide media tour called 'Quiz the Whiz' that challenges news desks to stump the human encyclopedia with questions from Microsoft's Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005.

So the media campaign is to draw attention to what, exactly? If you stump Jennings, he is knocked down a peg and you demonstrate that he was more lucky than anything in getting asked question on Jeopardy he just happened to know. Why bother with any specific education/product if success comes only from a coin flip? If you don't stump him, Encarta is knocked down a peg because he shows that he has more knowledge than what they're trying to sell and that you should probably buy another product if you want a more comprehensive reference. There is no win-win here; someone at MS should be fired for thinking up this gimmick.

Seinfeld Endorsement Episode

[windside]

Did anyone else find it just a little bit weird that Jennings lost on the same night as Jeopardy aired the episode in which every category was somehow related to Seinfeld, not to mention the final category that was actually questions (answers?) about Seinfeld, read by actors fromSeinfeld...

The tie-in was a plug for the recently-released DVDs (one week before the airing of the episode, to be exact). Most Jeopardy episodes don't contain this kind of plug... in fact not a single one comes to mind in recent history. Doesn't anyone else find this the least bit weird?