The company said People Powered Stories will be the first of several social advertising products Microsoft plans to launch in the coming months. The product's release comes at a time when there is growing evidence that people are more likely to purchase a product recommended by a friend, while simultaneously showing a reluctance to purchase products directly marketed through social networks.

In a blog post and at a presentation in New York, Jenn Creegan, GM for Display Advertising Experiences at Microsoft Advertising, said the company was partnering with Bazaarvoice to offer People Powered Stories. The platform will allow advertisers to "tap into Microsoft's highly social and engaged audiences across multiple screens and deliver relevant ads in a way that is targeted and more measurable than is available for social advertising on the web today."

The announcement was coupled with the release of a study Microsoft commissioned of 713 social media marketers.

According to Creegan's blog post:

• The top two reasons advertisers invest in social media is to drive word of mouth and brand awareness (27% and 26% respectively).
• 72% of advertisers said measuring ROI on social media campaigns is too difficult.
• Advertisers believe 65% of word of mouth misses the intended audience.
• 73% of those advertisers surveyed said they want to make sure the ratings and reviews they curate online reach their target audience (which is more than likes, tweets or any other sources the survey asked about).

Skype was acquired by Microsoft in 2011 and a Skype client for Windows Phone had been promised by the end of last year. So far, Microsoft and its Skype unit have been quiet about the integration, but the Verge is reporting that company employees can now download a test version of Skype from the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Meanwhile, an internal Microsoft video that had been intended for executives at Nokia, is fueling more speculation about what features will be added to Windows Phone 8. Known by the codename Apollo, Windows Phone 8 is expected to be released sometime after the release of the Tango operating system, which is also expected at the Mobile Phone Congress.

Windows Phone 8 is also being upgraded to work on a wider range of hardware, and will include support for NFC radios.

Microsoft also said it expects 100,000 apps to be available for Windows Phone by the time Apollo is launched, which is currently rumored to be sometime in the fourth quarter.

"Overall, we're looking at a lot of changes and additions here, all of which seem designed to either bring Windows Phone in line with other platforms, feature-wise, or make it more closely identical to the desktop version of Windows," Evan Blass wrote on PocketNow. "It's probably safe to say that the jump from Mango/Tango to Apollo will be nearly as significant as the transition from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone, and this preview certainly gives us a lot to look forward to."

Photo courtesy of ShutterStock.

The post then goes straight to the list of Microsoft products to which Google users can switch: Hotmail, Bing, Office 365 and Internet Explorer. How are these products better for users' "own information" than Google? Well, they don't read it to target ads. What else do they do with users' information? No explanation here. "We've left the light on for you. :)", VP Frank X. Shaw writes. You have to hand it to Microsoft for being so forward, but by rushing to the sales pitch, this post misses a huge opportunity to be informative. Is that because the information might be more complex than Microsoft (and the press) would care to admit?

It then goes on to explain to the public that the reason people get to use Google's suite of products for free is because Google uses the data to target them for ads. What an astonishing revelation. Microsoft gives the disclaimer every critic of free Web services uses before assailing a new, user-unfriendly change: "To be clear, there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to improve the quality of an advertising product. But, that effort needs to be balanced with continuing to meet the needs and interests of users."

That's a great talking point. But Google's response to this campaign is so easy to imagine. "We rewrote our 60 privacy policies to be one clear, human-readable document. This policy doesn't collect any new information." Or how about this one? "Google users can export all their data and be gone forever. How's that for 'maintaining control of your personal information?' Hey Microsoft, how's your partner, Facebook, doing with that?"

The blogosphere won't make that argument for Google. It has to pay for an expensive campaign, just like Microsoft is.

UPDATE 12:30 p.m.: Google has posted a response. It's a simple checklist of myths versus facts, and it saves the deepest cut for last:

• Myth: Microsoft's approach to privacy is better than Google's. [Microsoft]
• Fact: We don't make judgments about other people's policies or controls. But our industry-leading Privacy Dashboard, Ads Preferences Manager and data liberation efforts enable you to understand and control the information we collect and how we use it--and we've simplified our privacy policy to make it easier to understand. Microsoft has no data liberation effort or Dashboard-like hub for users. Their privacy policy states that "information collected through one Microsoft service may be combined with information obtained through other Microsoft services."

We've always believed the facts should inform our marketing--and that it's best to focus on our users rather than negative attacks on other companies.

The sad thing is, there's plenty to critize about Google's new direction and its impact on users, it's just too complicated (and politically sensitive) for Microsoft to explain in an ad.

This is just a shady PR attack by Microsoft, and the press is buying it. Microsoft doesn't deign to inform its readers about Google's policy. It uses a few kumbaya words up front and then gets straight to the point: it's BAAAAD. But we've seen less spun talking points in the Republican presidential debates.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

What do you think of Google's new privacy policy? Sound off in the comments.

Which begs the question: How long before all of us can vote from the comfort of our laptop or smartphone?

Darin Gibby, a patent attorney and partner at Kilpatrick, Townsend and Stockton and author of Why Has America Stopped Inventing?, said the technology used in online voting is similar to that used to process credit card transactions. Voters may receive a temporary password or be asked by a web portal for information that only they would know.

If the password "was stolen by a fraudster during voting, it wouldn't matter as the password would expire the moment it is used," Gibby said. "For those who want additional security, biometrics could be used - meaning that a fingerprint ID mechanism could be hooked into a USB port for further identification. Although this may seem costly, many scanners like this already come standard on some laptop models."

In other words, online elections have the potential to decrease voter fraud. But changing the status quo, particularly in government, is always an uphill battle.

"Implementing a secure, cost-effective voting system is easily within the grasp of any state, even those with ailing budgets. Cost simply isn't an issue, and neither is security," Gibby said. "It all comes does to the simple fact that we have nobody in government positions who is willing to step forward and make the change."

That's all set to change within three years, according to a growing chorus of analysts. The latest to vouch for the impending growth of Windows Phone is iSuppli, who last week predicted that the platform could outperform Apple's iOS by 2015.

Still, some have balked at the claim that Windows Phone could rise to challenge iOS anytime so soon, given Apple's propensity to upgrade its mobile hardware every year, with even modest iterations yielding surprisingly successful results. What do you think?

There has been mounting speculation that Skype would soon be a feature on Windows Phone since Microsoft announced plans to acquire Skype last year. The company had initially promised the introduction of Skype-equipped Windows phones by the end of last year, and last week the Telegraph reported that Microsoft Rick Osterloh said at the Consumer Electrionics Show in Las Vegas that the feature will be available "soon."

But on Monday, a Microsoft spokesman refused to pin down the specifics of the product launch.

Meanwhile, Skype spokesperson Chaim Hass said the Guardian report was nothing new.

"This is nothing different than what was announced by MSFT last October," Hass said. "At this time, we have no specific timing to share."

Despite acquiring Skype from eBay for $8.5 billion last year, Microsoft's Windows Phone is the only major mobile operating system that does not have a fully-functional Skype client. While Microsoft could introduce a version of Skype for Windows Phone as early as next month, a extensive roll out is not expected until later this year when Microsoft updates the entire operating system.

Think carefully: all six have come out in opposition to the bill, which would put tight restrictions on Internet firms in an effort to enforce U.S. copyright laws (although some firms took more convincing stands than others). At least two of the companies, Google and Amazon, have said they may go dark to protest the bill.

If you guessed GoDaddy, which had a public dust up after initially supporting SOPA, you're right. Sort of. GoDaddy's PAC leads in percentage, giving 52.9% of the $38,750 it has given during this election cycle to Representatives that have signed on to co-sponsor SOPA and Senators who are co-sponsoring PIPA.

• Microsoft $88,500 (20.9%)
• eBay $32,750 (35.5%)
• Google $29,000 (47.5%)
• GoDaddy $20,500 (52.9%)
• Yahoo! $11,000 (35.5%)
• Amazon $4,000 (42.1%)

We contacted all six companies asking for comment and requested they get back to us by 3 pm ET/noon PT on Thursday. All of the companies missed that deadline, but we'll update if any of them get back to us.

ReadWriteWeb analyzed Federal Election Commission data maintained by OpenSecret.org. While the reports are for the current election cycle, they do not list the dates of individual donations, making it hard to determine if the donations were made before or after a lawmaker signed on to co-sponsor the bills.

SOPA, and its Senate counerpart, PIPA, would force search engines and websites to block links to sites that are listed as being "dedicated" to copyright infringement. SOPA has been widely endorsed by traditional media companies, but Web firms and free speech advocates have likened it to government-enforced censorship.

Outspoken Supporters Received PAC Money

All of the donations were made in the 2012 election cycle, and individual donations ranged from $1,000 to a high of $10,000 given to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. by Microsoft. Only two SOPA/PIPA sponsoring lawmakers received donations from all six company PACs: Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

Hatch, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee that unanimously approved PIPA in May, has been a long-time backer of the bill and its earlier versions.

"Fake pharmaceuticals threaten people's lives. Stolen movies, music and other products put many out of work," Hatch said in a statement posted on his Web site in May. "This is why protecting property rights is a critical imperative and is why we've come together in introducing this common-sense bill."

Goodlatte, meanwhile, made comments supporting SOPA as early as April, but didn't sign on as a co-sponsor until October.

"It is tempting to think of crimes involving counterfeiting and piracy, or intellectual property (IP) theft, as victimless, but this is simply untrue," he said a day after signing on as co-sponsor. "Piracy denies individuals who have invested in the creation and production of these goods a return on their investment thus reducing the incentive to invest in innovative products and new creative works. The end result is the loss of American jobs."

Among the SOPA/PIPA supporting lawmakers who were the biggest beneficiaries of donations from the PACs of six companies analyzed:

• Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah $15,500
• Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. $14,000
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. $12,000
• Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas $11,000
• Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif. $10,000
• Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif. $7,000
• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. $7,000
• Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. $7,000
• Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. $7,000
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. $6,500

A complete breakdown of donations by each company's PAC to lawmakers is available.

Jon Mitchell has details on Your Way, but in a nutshell, the new service better integrates Google+ content into Google search. That could have some looking for more objective ways to search, while also raising the ire of some big Web players.

All of this could play well for Bing. Since 2009, the number three search engine has had a partnership with Twitter similar to the one that lapsed with Google last summer. Since the Google agreement expired, it is now easier to find tweets in Bing via realtime searches than it is in Google. At the time of the breakup in July, it was unclear which side walked away, but Bing was quick to renew its ties with Twitter and strike a similar deal with Facebook.

Yesterday's news doesn't put Bing any closer to become a verb, but the search engine was running second to Google with 15.1% of the market in December (it's a distance third, as Google still controlled 65.9%, according to ComScore). In a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Bing, in conjunction with Yahoo!, now controlled 30 percent of the U.S. search market.

The fallout from search isn't the only reason why Bing may get a boost this year. The company has improved integration of Bing with Xbox and Kinect, which helps Microsoft grab a younger demographic when gamers move their search activity online from their consoles. Bing has also been working to improve its mobile offerings, releasing a much-imtpoved Bing app for Android and iOS5.

But perhaps the biggest indication that Bing is worth paying attention to came from Google itself, when it paid $900 million to Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox for the next three years.

If you happened to see the movie Star Trek VI (the last one with the original TV cast) when it premiered in theaters in 1991, perhaps there may have been a moment (or a dozen) when something occurred to you: You didn't have to dislike or even fail to appreciate these actors on-screen to realize, yep, there's a reason why this is - and should be - their last performance in this venue.

For most of the keynote, Ballmer was seated across a patio table from American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, both trying nervously to generate banter like two cars trying to jump start each other in an Alaska snowstorm. It was clear that Seacrest hadn't read much about the material before showing up on stage, as he was constantly searching for the location of his cues. TV people expect their cues to come from teleprompters, at eye level; public speakers look down toward monitors showing PowerPoint slides.

"We have a chance in the next year to really raise our game, our product line, to the next level, across phones, PCs, tablets, TV, the Xbox," opened Ballmer. "And really the heart and soul of that will be our kinda featured attraction tonight, our new Metro user interface."

Not since 1995 has the layout of an operating system been considered the keynote attraction at an electronics conference. Metro is the overall style of layout being applied to new apps for Windows Phone, Windows 8, and now Xbox 360. "I think people will be kind of impressed at how it lights everything up."

Seacrest thought that was a cue for something. It wasn't, so he searched for some sense of direction. Finding none at eye-level, he quickly ad-libbed: "When you said, 'Metro,' you looked at me in a strange way... Is it the jacket, the sweater, or the combination?" Ballmer got the joke, and then feigned laughter, which is about the second most painful thing you can witness Ballmer ever doing.

Even for a company that may yet have some irons in the fire, it was hard to watch this company stretch things out for time. There were truly painful moments, reminiscent of sitting through an infomercial for Time-Life Music, with some '50s legend of the stage now running on fumes, filling an hour reminding you about how excited he was and how great the past used to be.

It's no secret that stage show producers plant folks in the audience to help applaud at the right moments and generate enthusiasm (I've sat next to a few). This year, when the applause came from about eight people in response to the arrival on-stage of the Windows Phone part of the presentation, the groans from the rest of the crowd drowned them out.

Then Seacrest, who truly is a stranger to quiet crowds, tried to jump in and save the day, as though this were a Vegas lounge act and it was bombing. Holding out his hand in their direction as if to invite them to stand, he said, "The design team over here."

"We definitely took a different approach than everybody else," Ballmer then explained, "and I think we've got a unique and beneficial experience. All these phones these days, they all make calls, they connect to the Internet, they e-mail, social networks, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah," he added in what has come to be heralded as Ballmer's typically dismissive attitude toward market categories where his company is not the leader.

"If you take a look at it, the other phones make the sea of icons, the sea of applications, the kind of view of the world. What we've really done with Windows Phone, I think, is have a better way by putting your people, the people who are important to you, whether it's dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions in somebody's case, I might think," the CEO added, trying to hand off to Seacrest. There was a train of thought there that would have been oh, so welcome at CES 2009, when Microsoft had a prototype concept but opted instead to hold those cards close to its chest, and tout Windows Mobile instead.

When Ballmer moved to the topic of Windows 8, the old syndrome continued to rear its ugly head: starting a new train of thought, building a metaphor, and then finding himself descending into a list of things popping into his head that, impulsively, he could not then ignore.

"Of course, things change - that's the essence of this industry," he replied to Seacrest at one point. "In some senses, maybe the only two things that are constant: Number one, things change. And number two, people don't want to compromise on what they have today. They want the best of what they have and the best of what they want. Nobody wanted to give up anything they had on their desktop, for example, when the world moved to notebooks. It's a wonderful thing. The Windows PCs evolved - it was a programming machine, it was a productivity machine, a music machine, a video machine, an Internet machine. But we don't give up anything."

This evening, we saw the first sign of later builds of Windows 8 running on "Intel-inspired" ultrabooks, than the Developer's Preview that premiered last fall in Anaheim. The green background tone of the Metro-style Start menu has been muted to more of a teal, and multiple saved bookmarks in IE10 are now multi-colored. Besides these factors, there was not much noticeable difference.

Easily the most painful moment of the evening came, sadly, from a gospel choir that had been hired to improvise wonderful, joyful sounds based on tweets that were being streamed in over the speakers' monitors below stage. It wasn't painful for the music; the voices were actually good. Some of the tweets they were singing were selected refrains of excitement from viewers looking forward to the upcoming Xbox-related announcements.

And here they were: The arrival of the Metro-style interface for selecting programming choices (which some Xbox players are already doing). This was followed by a preview of a Metro-style programming guide for Verizon FiOS, which will soon also be tailored for Comcast subscribers (who know they'll still have to subscribe to Comcast's HD STBs whether they use Xboxes instead or not).

And a live demonstration of a little girl who was obviously a few years graduated from Sesame Street, using the Kinect tool to toss imaginary coconuts into Grover's cardboard box.

Not all of these are bad things - certainly I would have seriously considered this Kinect app for my daughter had it been made available a decade earlier. It's just that the first rule of public speaking is "Know Your Audience," and this amalgam of software-related events, most of which we've already seen, speaks to a vastly different audience than the one assembled here in Las Vegas. The audience is doing the types of things that Ballmer describes as "blah-blah-blah-blah-blah." There was a disconnect this year, a clear sign that Microsoft has moved one way and CES another. Rather than prolong the agony, perhaps it's best to just say it's time, and move on.

Back in 2010 we put together our first list of the 30 best and worst Web tech tattoos. Here's our latest compilation, including an augmented reality tattoo, HTML tags, Javascript and C++, Debian, Wordpress, Google, Microsoft, RFID, QR codes, even Bill Gates' face. If you have work that's better, or worse, show it off in the comments.

Unix commands/C++/Javascript

Google

Microsoft

Next page: RFID, Augmented Reality, QR codes and Tux sitting on Windows eating an Apple!

RFID

Augmented Reality

Android

HTML

Networks

Tux

Debian

QR Code/Shotcode

WordPress

Sources: Machine gun Tux: wrightzen; Jobs, left: Cult of Mac; Jobs, right: SODAPOP; RIP toe, Geeky Tattoos; Jobs, arm: Cult of Mac; Stay hungry, wrists: Speak Truth, Breath Love; Stay hungry, arm: Gristle Tattoo; Apple/Jobs icon: gadgetpolice.com; "There is no reason": wease.com; "One more thing": Cult of Mac; Unix commands: Geeky Tattoos; Google It: jessversus; Powered by Google: Geeky Tattoos; Windows XP: traviscostrrr; Windows: bremiclem; Bill Gates: Big Tattoo Planet; RFID: The Loom; Augmented reality: iheartchaos.com; Android: eagyn; Android skateboard: the brand show; HTML body: iamdonte; : interbent; : interbent; CCIE: knuckletattoos.com; Tux: Sabrina Ricci; Debian arm: MicheleM_; Debian back: NiNiaX; QR code: Geeky Tattoos; ShotCode: Ad Lab; Wordpress: Hugo Baeta

To ensure such nightmares are never relived, the company will start rolling out automatic upgrades to Internet Explorer across Windows 7, Vista and XP, the company announced in a blog post today. Rather than relying on users to update the browser themselves or requiring you to trick your parents into updating theirs around the holidays, Windows will update to the latest compatible version of IE on its own.

This doesn't mean that every Windows machine on the planet will automatically be updated to the latest stable build of Internet Explorer overnight. The automatic update feature will be rolled out in Australia and Brazil first, and then to other countries over the course of next year. The software will upgrade to the most recent version of the browser that's compatible with one's operating system. Thus, Windows XP users can only go as high as Internet Explorer 8. Still, that's a huge and worthwhile improvement from version 6.

The feature will be available to most Windows users, but it can easily be disabled, much to the delight of corporate IT departments everywhere.

iPhone owners not satisfied with the available options now have a new one in Microsoft's SkyDrive, which launched its first iOS app today. The four-year-old service has been available to Windows users on the desktop and Windows Phone platform for some time. Today, it starts to branch out onto other platforms.

Lots of Windows users are carrying around iPhones, so it only makes sense for Microsoft to let them access their cloud-stored files from the device. Otherwise, most people will instinctively go for a solution like Dropbox. With its 25 GB of free space, SkyDrive is an attractive alternative to Dropbox, who only offers only two. Box's free account comes with five gigabytes of free storage.

This is just the latest iOS app from Microsoft, who released an application for Bing as well OneNote, which may foreshadow the eventual launch of Microsoft Office for iOS.

When it was launched back in August 2007, SkyDrive was described as "a personal 'harddrive' on the internet". It's now a major player in the consumer cloud market, competing with other big guns like Apple's iCloud and Amazon Cloud Drive. Also SkyDrive competes with innovative startups like Dropbox and SugarSync. The Microsoft blog post presents some statistics about the consumer cloud market, along with big claims for its future.

1. File clouds; using the traditional file and folder structure. Examples: SkyDrive, Dropbox
2. Device clouds; "A device-centric view of cloud storage "hides" the folders from you." Example: iCloud
3. App clouds; "they fully embrace the cloud [and] can enable new ways to collaborate, organize, and share." Examples: Google Docs, Evernote

That's a good way to break down the market, although you could argue that the first two categories will eventually converge.

According to Microsoft, mainstream users are "just starting" to use personal cloud products. Its own study, based on "an anonymous panel of MS customers," has 22% of people storing their photos online and 1% storing documents online. One suspects the figures would have been significantly higher if the panel had been comprised of Google Docs users. Microsoft customers are more likely than most to be still reliant on desktop software. Even so, I'm rather surprised at how low the online document storage figure is.

Microsoft also polled three groups of what it calls power users: college students, gadget fans, and photo enthusiasts. One statistic mentioned in the blog post is that "over 70% of Dropbox users also use Google Docs." Microsoft claims that "using these different tools can lead to formatting loss, extra steps and versions, or just confusion, since each tool has its own limitations." Which apparently is where Microsoft's SkyDrive comes in: presto, it solves all of that confusion. Google would argue that users should just use Google Docs for all of their documentation needs, which would also solve the confusion.

Frankly none of the above study results are very convincing, given that Microsoft was polling Microsoft users. The statistics that I was impressed by were SkyDrive's own usage numbers:

1. How many people are storing content on SkyDrive every month - 17M (October 2011)
2. How much content are they uploading and sharing every month - 360M files (October 2011)
3. How many devices connect to SkyDrive every month - 5M devices (October 2011)

How Does SkyDrive Compare to Other Offerings?

SkyDrive offers 25GB of free personal storage, with a limit of 100MB per individual file. That's a lot more storage than iCloud, which only offers 5GB of free storage. However the iCloud free storage limit doesn't include your photos or purchased music, apps, books, and TV shows.

So a big benefit of SkyDrive is the generous amount of free storage. However, as with many Microsoft online products, it's not a complete consumer cloud solution. There is also something called Windows Live Mesh, which syncs files between devices. The two products, SkyDrive and Windows Live Mesh, exist side by side. That's confusing for the consumer.

The bottom line though is that if you use mostly Windows devices (e.g. PC, tablet, smartphone), then SkyDrive is probably going to be a great solution for you. It's already being integrated into Windows Phone. If you use mostly Apple products, then iCloud is probably your best bet.

Or you can use an OS-independent service like Amazon Cloud Drive or Dropbox, products which often offer more functionality. As RWW Channels Editor David Strom wrote in a product comparison mid-year, neither iCloud or SkyDrive "is anywhere near what a cloud storage provider such as Box.net or Dropbox.com can provide in terms of features."

It's unclear what impact Windows 8 will end up having on the evolution of SkyDrive, but it's significant that Microsoft is so bullish on the consumer cloud. After all, Windows is the epitome of the desktop computing paradigm. If you've used SkyDrive, let us know your thoughts in the comments.

The acquisition, which cost Microsoft a reported $70 million, brings facial and object-recognition video search to the XBox, so it no longer relies solely on descriptions and other meta data when conducting searches. It works across services, so a search for "Lady Gaga" will return results from Netflix, Hulu and a variety of online video sources.

In the meantime, they're also going to be rolling out voice search capabilities on the Kinect for XBox 360, which will add a Siri-like functionality to the experience. The Kinect can already understand basic voice commands for things like pausing and playing a movie, in addition to its infamously awesome motion-based, hands-free controls.

Microsoft said they plan on launching voice search for XBox LIVE over the course of the holiday season and they expect the VideoSurf integration to improve the functionality over time.

There have been concerts, shows and even a marriage proposal in the six-story Windows Phone in the middle of Manhattan. It is gaudy Microsoft marketing at its best (anybody remember the ProjectNatal/Kinect announcement?) and will be one of the first signs of wave of marketing coming from both Microsoft and Nokia. How will much will this matter for Windows Phone going forward?

We got a full preview of what Nokia is going to do with its Windows Phone marketing at Nokia World in London several weeks back. Nokia brought in designers to cook up color schemes that will appear to the young (green, pink, blue and black) as well as a guerilla-style marketing plan. That plan is intended to get people to take their phones out of their pockets and take a picture of some oddity, like a guy in a live tile running down the street. Think of the concept of Improv Anywhere or a flash mob singing Christmas carols, just with Microsoft marketing bent.

The spectacle is what this absurd Windows Phone is doing in downtown Manhattan. Tell me, really, are you going to walk by that monstrosity and not take a picture of it? It is all part of the climb back for Windows Phone to market relevance and it shows how important that is to Microsoft. This week marks the year anniversary of Windows Phone and if sales topped five million for the year, that would be a surprise.

"This is a long effort and will take time to unfold. What we saw in NY is the level of marketing and energy Microsoft is willing to put behind Windows Phone and the degree of investment and commitment already in the project," said Al Hilwa, program director of application development software at IDC in Seattle.

Pictures: Windows Steam Blog

Winning At Mobile

Apple was the first salvo in the smartphone platform war. Windows Mobile CE was actually ahead of Apple and quite a bit before Android and CE still holds a disconcerting amount of market share for a series that was discontinued more than a year ago. There is too much potential in mobile for Microsoft to not push as hard as possible with Windows Phone and the company has the money to spend to not only market it, but build the platform around it. In that regard, Nokia is on board.

"The potential phone market is a much bigger market than the PC market as it might reach several billion annual devices sold in a few short years, but there is no doubt it is an application platform war and it is no accident that the iPhone is brought to us by the same vendor that gave us Macintosh," said Hilwa.

The Nokia Lumia 800

We were the first to report that Nokia will be bringing a variety of Windows Phones to the U.S. with unique specifications across carriers. You thought that you saw a big wave of marketing for Android phones coming from each carrier? Wait until Nokia, Microsoft and all the operators are pushing Windows Phone in the U.S. next year.

What do you think? Is persistence, Windows Phones the size of small buildings and a fistful of dollars going to be enough to push Windows Phone to relevance? Let us know in the comments.