What’s up with the weirdo-nasty TV spots, Microsoft? First you confused me with Jerry and Bill, now you’re telling me that “artists” can be PC users, too? I’m talking about the ads where the “picky” consumer is in the market for a new laptop and tries to find a Mac in their price range – and can’t. So they then proceed to find a PC that meets all of their criteria, for half the price – and Microsoft is so excited by their comparison shopping that they pay for it. (Read Apple’s response, via Roughly Drafted.)

Okay, fine. Try to convince me that a professional video editor is going to do just fine running software on Windows, I might believe you, because I don’t know better. But now try to convince me that the way I’m searching on the internet is totally wrong? What a bone to pick, guys. Too bad most people (65%) are pretty much satisfied with their search experience, or rather, with their Google experience. How do you tell someone that they’re going about it all wrong? How about with a costly ad campaign?

That’s right, I’m talking about Bing, MFST’s new search engine that is actually performing fairly well, according to early comScore data. And I’ll hand it to them, the ad where people are babbling search terms is pretty good – at some point we all find ourselves thinking down a completely different line than we’d planned, thanks to search. But isn’t that kind of fun, in a Tim Leary kind of way?

Here’s the latest ad, this one for Internet Explorer 8. But oh, isn’t that Dean Cain? My favorite alum, and of the Glenn Nelson volleyball era to boot. (Watch for the guy in the back with the tree. I like him best.)

Cartoon via this blog, but created by Oliver Widder, a rather dapper Hamburg-ian.

Here's some filler text to enjoy while you ponder the meaning of "follow."

April marked the fourth consecutive month that Facebook ranked first for its number of unique visitors and time spent – InformationWeek, citing Nielsen data.

Time spent? How much time, exactly?

Um, 13.9 billion minutes. Up from 1.7 billion minutes. Now, I don't have the wherewithal to locate my nearest digital calculator, so I'll just believe the article when it tells me that's an increase of 700%.

SEVEN HUNDRED PERCENT, kids.

It looks cool when you write it in all caps, and it also is more frightening. It means that we are spending exponential more time in these little virtual bubbles, sending cryptic updates, fake-spying on high school acquaintances. (It's not stalking if there's no restraining order.)

What I find interesting is that Facebook is overtaking MySpace and yet it caters to a slightly older demographic. Translation: older people are learning how to "hang out" online, too. Now watch: the teenagers take advantage of our Twitter-Facebook obsession to get offline and do something surprising and perhaps wonderful, while our eyes remain glued to our virtual networks.

Brands and marketers who got all excited about using Twitter as a tool for reaching that 18-24 demographic may be sorely disappointed by a recent study that shows just 29% of young'uns on Twitter follow companies; most are interested in following their friends, and celebrities. (In that order, thank god.)

That is, if they're even on Twitter. Just 2 in 10 in that age group use it, compared to 9.9 out of 10 that have profiles on social networks, according to the Participatory Media Network study. Wait, 0.1 of a person? Does that mean there's three-quarters of a femur out there, floating around, without a requisite 'casual sexy' profile picture, eclectic-yet-mainstream musical tastes, and 'smart' literary quote with which to identify itself to its 700 friends? God forbid.

Michael Della Penna of PMN called it a "glass half full" scenario. "Clearly we're only touching the surface of its potential as a marketing vehicle," he says.  "It's clear that Gen Y has an appetite for social networking, but still hasn't fully embraced micro-blogging. There is a tremendous opportunity now for marketers to develop strategies to get this important group active on Twitter too."

Yes, clearly. Let's keep telling ourselves that. And let's also keep them as two separate entities, shall we? Because that doesn't make sense – integrating the less popular medium into the one that the group is already gaga over. Ga. ga.

By the way – funny that a search for "facebook twitter," or vice versa, brings up Twitter's Facebook page well before Facebook's Twitter account. Did that just make you dizzy?