Reaction
| Reading in the loo, or the bog, is a traditional English pastime. We've all seen the magazine racks, loo paper with jokes and cartoons on the walls in toilets up and down the land. You've got to hand it to the creative—and uniquely English—minds at Microsoft. |
| —Jeremy Davies, market researcher from Context |
Although the product was not publicly released, many questioned whether "Microsoft had lost its senses" and the product was widely derided. Critics contended that the product was a waste of money and doomed to fail. Concerns were raised about how the iLoo would serve to extend waiting lines, how hygienic it would be to share keyboards in a public loo, and what would be happen if the keyboard were to be urinated upon. Critics also questioned whether users would spend enough time in the loo to make use of the internet facilities, noting that "most port-a-potty users stay only long enough to relieve themselves without having to inhale."
The iLoo, given its toiletry-related nature, subjected MSN and Microsoft to puns and jokes especially since Microsoft's marketing slogan at the time was "where do you want to go today?" with the PC being dubbed Pee-C. The Herald Sun wrote that the "iLoo is, unquestionably, very good news – mainly to journalists with a bottomless pit of laboured bum jokes" while the Seattle Times wrote "now the company has a credibility problem as well as a red face." Other newspapers issued humorous headlines: Microsoft technology headed for toilet from the San Francisco Chronicle, Toilet mixes zeroes with ones and twos from the Washington Post, and Microsoft's Gone Potty from The Daily Mirror.
The product has since been studied as an example of a public relations disaster and an example of an internet hoax. Microsoft's public relations response to the debacle is also considered to be one of the poorest in the company's history, given Microsoft's reputation for micro-managing news releases, interviews and promotional events.
The iLoo's negative publicity drowned out the launch of MSN Radio Plus on May 12, 2003. It has since inspired a number of spoofs.
Read more about this topic: ILoo
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