Digital Home Thoughts: Apple vs. Microsoft in the Social Networking Sphere

"If you were a betting man (or woman), who do you think would win in a Web 2.0 face-off between the two most widely used desktop/laptop operating systems? In one corner you have OS X, Apple's svelte and sexy OS that is adored by practically everyone who has tried it. In the opposite corner, you have the various flavors of Windows, which have a much larger home and enterprise userbase, but haven't gotten much positive press in recent years. If you put your money behind OS X, you're out of luck."

This article brings up a really interesting point - that the way Microsoft is engaging with customers is radically different than what Apple does. The number of Microsoft people out there on public blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook, etc. is enormous compared to Apple's level of involvement. I think this comes down to the philosophy behind each company: Microsoft tends to want to talk to their customers to find out what they want, and Apple tends to build what they want to build and tell their customers "You want this". Each approach has successes and failures - not everything Apple does is a home-run, and Microsoft doesn't always listen to the right people in the right way. If they had, Windows Vista, and most recently Windows Mobile 6.5, would have turned out differently...