Once again, Microsoft is turning to what they hope will be viral video. The company somewhat infamously tried this last year with a multi-million dollar campaign featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, but this time around, is going a bit more grassroots, with a series of YouTube videos featuring the likes of Ask a Ninja and Obama Girl, as well as some B-list Hollywood stars.
The centerpiece of the campaign is this irreverent video about the history of the Web, from animated gifs to status updates. You can check it out below:
Other videos featured on the IE8 channel on YouTube include several how-to’s including a discussion of IE8’s “privacy mode,” which, you can guess the primary use of.
Microsoft has setup a page on its own site to promote the campaign as well, complete with all of the videos and social media sharing options. However, to check it out, you need to have the latest version of Microsoft Silverlight installed, which, is somewhat inhibiting considering you’d think the goal of the campaign is to get people to switch to IE, and Silverlight requires a separate download if you’re on any other browser.