think native

Not since the Cola wars of the 80s do I remember such blatant and aggressive competitive ad campaigns coming out from two bitter rivals. Isn’t it fun to watch them pull ponytails and scratch each other’s eyes out?

Of course it all began here:

Then lately it’s Microsoft’s slightly desperate sounding rebuttal:

The latest smackdown move from Apple feels a little petty, but it’s still pretty funny:

 Your move, Gatesy.

Being sold in as a way of discovering music you forgot you have (a compelling proposition when you’ve got a few weeks worth of continuous music on your harddrive), the new Genius function in iTunes 8 uses the listening behaviour of all (opted-in) iTunes listeners over time to create an recommendation engine integrated into the media player itself. This engine draws songs from your library that ‘go well together’ with a 1-click playlist set up. The new iPods will allow you to do this on the go too.

Pretty sweet, looking forward to trying it out, though I suspect it’ll get better with time rather than being great from the start.