HP's 'The Computer Is Personal Again' Ad Campaign. 'Again'? Was the Computer Ever Personal Before?

Check out these commercials for Hewlett-Packard below.

The new HP ad campaign features billionaire entrepreneur/Dallas Mavericks owner/co-founder of HDNet, Mark Cuban, professional snowboarder/skateboarder, Shaun White, Hip-Hop artist/President & CEO of Def Jam & Roc-A-Fella Records, Jay-Z, producer/singer/rapper/musician, Pharrell Williams, and Reality TV Producer Mark Burnett in their own personal style showing how they use their computers both personally and professionally.

They are definitely a creatively conceived and well done batch of commercials but I think that the phrase, "The computer is personal again" may be presently outdated because more and more people now have everything from Blackberrys, to personal computers on their phones, to personal laptops, etc., so it strikes me as kind of odd for where we are already with personal computers in 2006, but HP obviously is going with that phrase.

OK, not to be a wise guy or stickler here for words here, but when did computers all of a sudden not become personal? Was their a break I missed where computers were non-personal in the last 10 years? OK, before then, not so personal as they are today, of course. The 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s - not personal at all! Computers have actually been going in a more and more personal targeted direction for a while now almost nonstop since 1995 at least?

Was their another timeframe perhaps when computers were personal that we don't know about? OK, maybe ancient computers? ;) I have read stories of what has been described as the equivalent of 'ancient' computers being found in certain site digs all over the Earth over time, but is HP implying by saying "again" that they are going all the way back to the Atlantis, Mayan, Egyptian and Greek days of believed and documented technology? Such as the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek device for calculating the movements of planets which dates from about 87 BC? Just wondering!

I guess HP is saying theirs is "the most" personal of them all out here right now, as in, one can do "the most" with theirs? Maybe I would have said, "the computer is now even more personal" instead. Lol! Who knows?

If you go to HP's website hp.com/personal you can even create your own commercial by uploading your own picture (nice, fun, touch - now, that's marketing!) and also see the latest ones they've done.

Still a very well conceived and designed set of commercials. By the mostly positive buzz that is being created by these commercials on the net, I am wondering who they will get to star in the next ones we may see.

Jay Z (premiered in June):



Pharrell (premiered in July):