A New IE Ad: A More Beautiful Web

Microsoft this past weekend released a nice new advertisement for its Internet Explorer web browser, which it says will unleash a more beautiful web. The ad is appearing on TV, across cable, broadcast, cinema and with localized versions internationally.

Here's the ad:

A More Beautiful Web is... Internet Explorer TV Commercial from Internet Explorer on Vimeo.

"Just around one year ago, with the release of Internet Explorer 9, we started talking about the idea of unleashing a more beautiful web," IE general manager Ryan Gavin writes in the Exploring IE Blog. "It's been fun and sometimes pretty dazzling to see what designers, developers, and artists have created over the past year ... It has been a pretty inspiring year, and yet in many ways, the best is yet to come."

According to Microsoft, the ad is the work of Seattle-based filmmaker Keith Rivers and features a vocal performance by British singer-songwriter Alex Clare.

In a related press release, Microsoft describes its work with Alex Clare on the ad.

"What makes Alex Clare's song so complementary to the advertisement is that it's filled with uplifting energy and vocals that speak to what Internet Explorer stands for, a humble force powering your Web experience," says Mr. Rivers. "The song carries you through a journey and re-energizes you, and Internet Explorer is all about that, giving the power to the user to focus on what you care about." 

It's a cool ad, actually. Be sure to check it out. And if you like the song, which is called "Too Close", you can find it now on the Zune Marketplace too.


Discuss this Article 8

LemonSaucy
on Mar 5, 2012
We're so drenched in babylon's media "art" (sometimes including supra/sub-liminal psychological manipulation and - often enough - neurolinguistic programing techniques) that I can't quite celebrate "a more beautiful web". 'Guess I'm the odd man out, eh? Thank God for the hosts file which blocks a lot of that from my computer.
TechnoTim06
on Mar 5, 2012
Microsoft sure is liking the dubstep genre on their videos. Well done.
TechnoTim06
on Mar 5, 2012
Microsoft sure is liking the dubstep genre of music in their videos lately. Well done.
LemonSaucy
on Mar 5, 2012
Anyone interested in blocking all those unwanted Flash ads should investigate the MVPs.org host file (Microsoft Most Valued Professionals). It blocks both the ads and the tracking cookies by deadsinking their website addresses. The addresses of the ads in a webpage are different from the webpage's. The host file is consulted by Internet Explorer 9 *before* DNS lookup. Major ad companies get listed in the file and a deadsink address (usually 127.0.0.1) is supplied as their DNS resolution (instead of the actual website). This means you can surf the web generally free of all the ads and tracking cookies. Technically, the hosts file is a text file that resides in the "C:\\Windows\System32\drives\etc\" folder. It is named hosts - no file extension. In a typical Windows install it is basically blank. You can simply swap out the old one for the new one. I rename the old one to "hosts.original", then copy in the MVPs version. The MVPs hosts file is available here: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt Before placing it in Windows\System32\drivers\etc\ rename it to: hosts That's with no file extension. You may have to go into Folder Options and set Windows to show file extensions (hidden is the Windows default). Or just run MVPs little utility which does the work for you: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.zip Visit their website to read up on it: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm Once done, your Internet Explorer 9 experience will be a more beautiful web!
glenn.gilbert@b...
on Mar 5, 2012
Why would anyone use IE for their web browser? The past 9 versions have been the most bug-ridden unreliable and security hole ridden bits of software known to man; how is IE version 10 going to be any better? The one thing IE was good for was getting some competition going in the browser market place. Well, at least that gave Microsoft something to copy; like Firebug.
Mustang17
on Mar 5, 2012
I use IE9 most of the time, except when watching 'The Daily Show' here in the UK ;o) Great ad too, its good to see some positivity in Microsoft products. Too many whiners in the Microsoft camp.
LemonSaucy
on Mar 7, 2012
Same here, I use IE9. I have a second computer that has virtual machines I use for testing - WinXP, WinVista etc. - and on those I have other browsers. But that's it - the other browsers only are installed on virtual machines for testing, I *use* IE9 and quite like it. It's fast, easy to use, most websites are compatible with it, it "sandboxes" i.e. runs in Protected Mode so it is more secure than other browsers (Internet Explorer, you've come a long way baby!) .. and I like that it's slim and uses coloured tabs and pins well to the Taskbar. So the question isn't why would I use IE9, it's why would I use anything else!?
glenn.gilbert@b...
on Mar 9, 2012
So you've not heard of AdBlock, FlashBlock and NoScript? It's nice to have a browsing experience that's not full of flashing and banging banner ads and superfluous dross taking up my bandwidth and CPU. You obviously don't do web development either as there's a shed load of decent tools such as Firebug, the Web Developer toolbar and a whole host of other addons not available to the second-class IE citizens - Selenium, TamperData, YSlow... I won't go on about the embedded drive-by hacks that have plagued previous versions of IE. Nor the issues of lack of support for CSS3 in IE9, plus a load of the usual bugs -- peekaboo's still there. Nope, I still can't see any reason for choosing IE over a proper browser. You can't even delete the useless thing either.

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