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MS Youth-Culture App Gets Gushy Advance Reviews

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the goo-stuck-on-bubblegum-on-cotton-candy dept.

geo writes "Newsweek first reported this new Microsoft beta, threedegrees. The surprise is, Steven Levy, well-known fan of the Macintosh (and unfan of Microsoft) wrote something almost entirely positive. So did CNET news.com.com.com.com.com. Is it possible that something good is coming out of Redmond?"

4 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. Misquote in the article. by t0qer · · Score: 1, Informative


    "But when Willy Wonka met Charlie,"
    Savage says, "he didn't say, 'You can be an intern and in a few years can
    suggest one feature in a product'--he gave him the keys!"


    No he said:


    Just over there.

    Charlie bucket.

    Well, well, charlie bucket. I read all about you in the papers. I'm so happy for
    you.

    And who is this gentleman?

    My grandfather, grandpa joe.

    Delighted to meet you, sir.

    Overjoyed, enraptured, entranced. Are we ready? Yes. Good.


    It's

    here




  2. Coming from a 15 year old... by Exiler · · Score: 3, Informative

    Crappy bands like Avril and Blink ARE teen society, right now those horrible pop-punkish bands are terribly 'in'

    --
    Banaaaana!
  3. in short, yes by lingqi · · Score: 4, Informative

    but it's still ristricted.

    1) you need to have licenses (maybe via media player DRM modules?)
    2) you can't play more than 60 songs on the playlist
    3) others can't play your songs if you are offline.

    pretty stringent - but better than what RIAA have been dealing out.

    What better to explain the word "clout?"

    btw, Ars Technica has a small writeup on this too - so check there for more geeky-perspective.

    --

    My life in the land of the rising sun.

  4. Isn't this just IRC? by IvoryRing · · Score: 5, Informative
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but reading the article makes it sound just like IRC to me.
    1. cliquey little channels? check.
    2. play music in the background? check.
    3. emoticons? check.
    4. swap files? check.
    5. chat and be online all the time? check.
    Makes me wonder if perhaps MS is glad to have seen the recent attacks on DalNET - now they can say 'sign up for threedegrees, we never get attacked because we are too cool' or some such marketspeak.

    By the way, all of the items in the checklist have both positive and negative implications.

    Notes: Background Music on IRC? Yep - on the more social/chatty channels, I've seen all kinds of CTCP or in channel requests that look like "please play this music, and if you don't have it, fetch it from me via DCC" - I'm assuming that some clients have automated support for this, and they word the request such that you can still do it manually if you really want (clue for commercial software vendors that think you need a new protocol for every new feature - it's called interoperability and backwards compatibility)

    Emoticons? But winks are animated! Um... yeah, so? Perhaps somebody doesn't quite understand yet - slang originates from exclusivity of communication, not 'ooo, shiney!'. Because you can make up ASCII emoticons on the fly, just as you can with slang, I actually think that the ASCII version is a better tool for the communication purpose. Maybe I'm giving the youth of today too much credit, but I don't really think they are willing to accept the limitation to language fluidity. So some will use winks, and some will use ASCII emoticons within the contect. Of course, I'm not sure how much the 'new great thing' factor will play into this.