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You'd expect to see all kinds of corporate blowjobs in a tech trade like Linux Journal. But an ad about blowjobs? Unlikely, I know, but this one, showing an attractive woman and promising that QSol's servers, like her, "won't go down on you," appeared in the magazine's August 2007 issue. It has, of course, attracted the attention of several blogs, including our sibling sites Gawker and Jezebel. But there's one overlooked fact in most of the coverage.



This ad is completely unoriginal. Linux Journal ran an almost identical ad seven years ago, in its November 2000 issue. And the 1.0 version stirred up just as much controversy — so much that the magazine apologized for and promised to pull from any future editions of the magazine. Promises, promises.

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Obviously QSol ran the ad to titillate and shock, and get talked about — and from that perspective, the company has succeeded. But then there's the quality of the ad itself. Leave aside the broken promises, and the ad's tiresome execution. Why would you want to buy servers from a company that clearly hasn't had a new idea in seven years?