Put your best (unmasked) face forward

You just never know what’s going to stumble into your email inbox. A couple days ago, we announced webOS 2.0 and the new Palm Pre 2, and today, we received a video from an oddly familiar (masked) face. But this time, our woolen-faced friend isn’t here in his role as “The Defender” of the occasionally anxious Palm community. (If you're saying to yourself “The mask is familiar, but I can’t quite remember where I’ve seen him before,” you can see some of his video messages to Palm over the past year on YouTube.)

No, this time, he’s sent us an audition tape of sorts. Apparently he’s looking for a career change (I guess there’s no money in extortion these days, especially if you neglect to ever ask for any kind of ransom payment…). Seems he’s pretty excited about what he’s seen in webOS 2.0, and wants to become our official spokesperson.

   

Now, there’s about as much chance of that happening as there is of, say, some oddball dude on a horse becoming the spokesperson for a brand of nautically themed men’s toiletries generally thought of as every one’s fallback gift when you suddenly remember that oh, yeah, it’s my nephew’s birthday tomorrow….

But here’s the thing: Every day, we hear from folks on Twitter or Facebook who tell us that they "sold" another webOS phone to someone in their office (or their neighbor, or their buddy, or their spouse). And some of you sound like you probably make a better case for webOS than our “friend” here in the video.

So if you’ve been helping to tell the webOS story, we’d like to see how you do it. Do you show people just how effortless it is? Showcase a favorite app? Tell them about some of the cool things (like Stacks and Just Type) coming in webOS 2.0? Explain the power of the homebrew community? Or do you (and yes, I do mean you) just naturally wow people with your sparkling personality and your snappy attire?

BTW, we really don't recommend the ski-mask route. Here's a kinder, gentler approach to spokesbabyship that works pretty well, too: 

 

Whatever works for you, we’d love to see it. Shoot a quick video and share it on YouTube (flag it with #MaskAppeal), and we’ll highlight a few of our favorites back with you. No official rules, no special exclusions for residents of Vermont -- we just want to see your pitch. (But our attention does tend to wander on videos longer than 30 seconds and we’ve been known to enjoy a good Justin Bieber impression.) 

Jon Zilber

Comments

[Tim Stiffler-Dean]

Old Spice Guy reference FTW!
This looks like a lot of fun. Perhaps I shall do it and see what I can come up with.

[Mark Behrendt]

I await the hilarity that is sure to ensue.

[Orawas]

Funny stuff... :)

[Colonel Kernel]

Put youR best (unmasked) face forward

No need to post this comment to the site. Just wanted to tip you to your typo.

[Rickdarone]

Hahahaha! This is Great! Paaaaaaaaaaaaalm!
Good job on embracing the Palm community. You guys rock.

[Paul]

Love the work you guys are doing! I always thought that a 'referral program' similar to Cell Phone companies would be cool. For example: When someone creates a new Palm ID they can enter a Palm ID of the person that referred them. Both people receive a $10 (or any increment) gift card to the app store. Great way to promote the phone and the Apps!!

[dalebert54]

It would be much easier to sell if there were new, better hardware to sell instead of repackaged, slightly upgraded hardware in the Pre 2. A slightly tweaked phone which did not sell particularly well is not a strong selling point, no matter how incredible the OS. The Rotten Fruit does this, but on a phone which is a top seller, not the bottom of the pile. WebOS is indeed incredible, but the hardware needs to be too! The Pre 2 specs just barely catch up to middle tier phones released in the past months, which in reality means you start behind the pack and stay there. Same small screen, lower resolution, no focus on the camera, no forward facing camera, low storage capacity, same small battery with BARELY increased specs on talk/standby time, please! Is the slider actually improved, or will the new Pre oreo the second time in and out of my pocket? On these things alone, I cannot sell or defend this phone, no matter how snappy my attire. I continue to love and defend WebOS, and will continue to hang on to my Sprint Pre Minus, hoping for something better next year, but until then I remain quiet and semi-hopeful.

[Luis Manuel López]

Hello,

Is Ignacio Gallego still the Managing Director for Palm in Mexico?

Can you tell who is the press contact in Mexico City?

Thank you!

[ehskeep]

Whys isn't the new palm pre coming to the carrier that started it all. Sprrrrrrrrrrrrint

[Steven Tan]

I could sell people a lot better (like my whole friggin family) if I actually could push a Pre 2 on SPRINT! As it is now, the original Pre is seriously not cutting it, spec-wise, reliability-wise, etc.

I hope someone in the upper ranks at both Palm/HP and Sprint realize how very abandoned the early adopters and Palm loyalists feel right now at Sprint.

[Brian]

It is kind of hard to talk about webOS 2.0 when it isn't available in the country that created it.

The masked man was also pretty easy on Palm. Hard to say that bumping up the chip to 1Ghz which many phones had month ago constitutes a new super device.

I could talk about the power of the Homebrew community, especially how overclocking the original Palm Pre makes it just as fast as the Palm Pre 2 in video comparisons. That probably wouldn't help sell any Palm Pre 2s though.

[Ken]

I vote for the happy baby... even if it smacks of a commercial from etrade... lol

but seriously, I might send one in...

[Chris]

I've had my palm pre for over a year, and I have truely loved it! Unfortunately, I've been looking to upgrade it since I've "ran it into the ground", and since I'm a Premier Sprint member, I can upgrade after a year. After visiting the Sprint store and looking at all the new phones, I was captivated by the new HTC Evo3. I wish I could upgrade to a new Palm phone, but there wasn't anything new. Now, reading this new announcement that a Palm Pre 2 will be released in France, then to Verizon in the states in a few months, I realized that nothing new is coming from HP Palm to Sprint anytime soon. I guess I'm left to converting to Google Droid and the new HTC Evo3, which better competes with the Apple iphone. I thought Palm would have been an iphone killer at one time, but without a palm pre hardware upgrade to better compete at this level with the new iphone4 and HTC Evo3, it looks like I'll need to switch to the Sprint HTC Evo3 with 4G wireless.

Sorry to do this to you HP Palm, but without any hardware upgrades in sight that compete with the Sprint HTC Evo3 4G, which better competes with the iphone, I'm left to make the change.

Unless... You can convince me otherwise by telling me it's worth the wait because next year in Q1 2011 we will release a larger screen phone, faster processor, higher pixel camera, etc...

If you don't have an answer soon to stall the loss of Sprint customers (hint: you should leak something very soon on this), you will have more of us original Sprint Palm users converting over. In fact, I ran into a guy at the store who just told me he just traded his Palm Pre in for an HTC Evo3 4G, since there was nothing new with Palm!

And your answer is?

[thedom]

Is there any voice dial on this?

[Steven K. Mariner]

Palm Centro still plugging away, but I really want a modern device. Pre was almost it (WebOS was excellent, loss of easy, secure, private backup was major FAIL, the rest was okay). Will Pre 2 span the gap Pre left behind? And the unlocked one with the slightly shorter battery life (Huh?) -- will it work on Sprint, and can I buy it legally? And when is it coming out? I wait with bated breath for Palm's last chance (again) to keep up with its customers. Please oh please oh please get it right this time. I don't want you to die, Palm. Please get it right this time.

[William Asher]

Will WebOS 2.0 be downloaded to existing Palm Pre Plus phones, or will I have to "upgrade" to a Palm Pre 2 to get it?

[bj]

must be sold by sprint not verizion

[anonymous]

I've had this smart phone that's rather dumb since may. It's a palm pre. And I will tell you......it is the biggest piece of crap!!! It will have times mostly where it won't let you go back to another screen, it won't let you close out that screen ur on, it will restart itself, it's just a piece of junk. This is my 3rd palm since may. Every single one has done that. That's wasted money right there for a palm pre. Or any palm. They don't know what they're doing.

[Wayne Campbell]

Thank you Palm for making this improvement to the Pre Plus.I wish you would advertise on TV more often. Just show TRUE multitasking and Just type and you will impress.

[Alan B Honest]

I am extremely disappointed that we are almost a year and a half into the Pre era BUT we dont yet have 1) actual release of WebOS 2 for our consumer devices, over a month from the "general release" date and almost 2 months since the "developer" release announcement 2) Flash, something promised over a year ago as "imminent" 3) an upgrade pathway to 4G laid out FAIRLY for the Sprint market webOS user 5) an honest explanation of why so many Pixi people thought WRONGLY (misled?) that their fon was capable of all that the Pre is (it NEVER will run Flash apparently... but many people were told is was "just a form factor difference"). I pay a TON OF MONEY every month for my two Pre's for non-Flash web access. Just over $200 a month once you factor in taxes and so on. $2400 over two years. And no Flash. Utterly, utterly, utterly CHEATING the customer by promising Flash and not delivering. SHAME on you.