Sprint "Now" widget ad page is momentarily nifty even if you're not using their product

@mathowie said, "When I was a kid, I always thought in the future I'd get paid to look at something like the Sprint Now dashboard"

Intrigued, I looked, and then we discussed in our editor's chat room:

Joel J. oh man surely we can comment somehow on this http://now.sprint.com/widget/ 1:05 PM Rob B. playing pong already Joel J. haha, boing boing is on there [First we'd heard of it – Ed.] god damn it I want to hate this btu I don't it's useless but cool Rob B. This is cooler than it should be. They should let you embed these And customize them. e.g. set the location for the weather widget Joel J. Yeah, but did you se some fo the widgets interact? Marvin B. is Les Savy Fav the default music for everyone or have they tapped into my brainwave cookies Joel J. like the trees into houses thing I don't ahve music I have ambient sound Marvin B. one of the widgets is LSF - Let's Stay Friends fo rme Joel J. neat 1:10 PM Joel J. oh cool the widgets change I LIKE THIS BUT I DON"T WANT TO Marvin B. and actually the YouTube widget is something i just watched the other day, too Joel J. no it loaded les savy fav for me too and I haven't listened to them Marvin B. i'm feeling surveilled ah, good Joel J. Brooklyn-based indie pop? It'll never work. 1:15 PM John B. Wow, that's weird. Joel J. This is one of those times we should just paste the chat into the post, but if we do it we should make sure we say something smugly meta-aware of our intentions. DIVIDE BY ZERO

Marvin then discovered it was the work of the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners agency. One commenter, Gordon Moat, encapsulated my thoughts exactly:

Looks interesting from a design point. Unfortunately, being a longtime Sprint customer, I think that you cannot tart up and gloss over things to sell what a service that is badly in need of improvement.

[#1 posted by Anonymous , November 11, 2008 6:49 PM]

Unfortunately, it doesn't actually do what it pretends it does ...

[#2 posted by FutureNerd , November 11, 2008 9:50 PM]

I never look back, darling, it distracts from The Now.

[#3 posted by Anonymous , November 12, 2008 3:44 AM]

"I think that you cannot tart up and gloss over things to sell what a service that is badly in need of improvement"

Gee, i'd love to think that too - unfortunately there are a large number of successful companies and products out there that demonstrate otherwise.