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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Sandbox   >   Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers – Why Steve Ballmer makes the perfect mashup

Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers – Why Steve Ballmer makes the perfect mashup

By on July 31, 2009
 

Every so often, when I get weary of the Internet, I go back to YouTube and watch the video embedded above.

It cheers me up without fail. Every time. And it gives me heart that the Internet really is changing the way we view content, authority, business, and art.

That’s quite a grandiose statement to make from what is, in essence, a neatly-edited video of perspiring Steve Ballmer (no, scratch that, of a sweating-buckets Steve Ballmer) chanting “Developers” lika a guru’s mantra.

But it’s so much more than that. YouTube enabled all of us to see how Steve Ballmer inspires his employees. It allowed an enterprising video editor to take two videos, splice together some of the best bits and create a new piece of content. It allowed a musician to sample the sound and create something new.

It turned a (admittedly pretty unusual) corporate conference into a piece of art.

If that isn’t a symbol of how the Internet is breaking down old hierarchies and structures, I don’t know what is.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com