The Cloud Ate My Homework - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 8

the advertising gurus marketing the next new thing. In this respect, the
materiality of the cloud is not limited to buildings, computers, software,
and data. It is also embodied in campaigns to remake the prosaic stuff of
engineering into the compelling image of the cloud. There was no magic
in how this happened. To bring the cloud into widespread awareness it
took marketing campaigns that developed from Salesforce's two very
expensive advertisements featured in the 2011 Super Bowl game; they
highlighted the singer Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and the animated
character Chatty “the magical cloud.” Laying the groundwork for this
big splash was IBM's foray into cloud marketing with its 2010 “smart
cloud” campaign pitched to corporate decision makers, and Microsoft's
“To the Cloud” advertisements aimed at small business and consumers.
Apple joined the chorus in a big way by changing the name of its online
service, which began as “.mac,” shifted to the personal (and, some would
say, self-absorbed) “.me,” and then settled on iCloud.
Commercial advertising is important to reach both institutional and
individual customers. However, it is only one part of a circuit of promotion
that also includes blogs, newsletters, and social-media sites that provide
information about the industry with an emphasis on how to sell cloud
computing by countering its critics and advancing its beneits. One of their
most important functions is to serve as a transmission belt for the indings
of more legitimate outlets like the reports of private research and consulting
irms, including Gartner, McKinsey, Deloitte, and Forrester. Each of these
leaders in the ield has produced one or more reports on cloud computing
and big data. With the exception of one, which appeared early (and was
nulliied by a later report by the same company), they are all massively
optimistic in their forecasts about the cloud. The message is simple: move
to the cloud. Although their reports are expensive, the essential indings
and the enthusiasm, as Chapter 3 demonstrates, circulate through the
hundreds of blogs and newsletters that share the enthusiasm. The circuit
of promotion expands internationally with reports that bring together
global players in business and government to promote the cloud. Chapter
3 concentrates on a report produced by the World Economic Forum, best
known for the annual Davos conference, that documents the unassailable
signiicance of information technology, cloud computing, and big-data
analytics. With the stamp of global legitimacy and the blessing of national
and international government agencies, as well as corporate participants,