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MS Youth-Culture App Gets Gushy Advance Reviews
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?"
The most ambitious feature is called musicmix, an online equivalent of a pajama party where people take turns playing deejay. Each group member contributes favorite tunes into a shared playlist, displayed on a dashboard with a customized "skin," and everyone listens together. A click from any participant can choose a new song. Then everyone chats about the tunes.
Does this mean that everyone must already have the tunes licenced on their computer? The following quote suggests otherwise:
Interestingly, men and women use this feature differently: guys will see it as a contest--who's brought the coolest tunes?
Sounds a bit like P2P on a tiny scale to me. I wonder how this fits in with Microsoft's DRM schemes...
So you can let your friends listen to the same music and share images and all that, great. But just wait there one tiny little moment, what if they save this new copyrighted music to disk! EEK! It appears that the right hand is not talking to the left or the NetGen department is not talking to the paladium (Or whatever todays name is) department. Microsoft goes radical against piracy and violating copyright holders while microsoft encourages 13 to 24 year olds to share and enjoy there music and graphics. Even if they say you cant save because its a stream over broadband that they asume you have someone will find a way to go around. Love the two conflicting messages from microsoft. Long live Apple!
Think about it. The new generation is the generation that will make the bussiness decisions later. Get them hooked up on Windows and the future looks bright for MS.
The current batch is still Windows minded although Linux makes quite a groundswell because the current generation likes it and uses it. So better turn them back to Windows as soon as possible. And the best way to do this is to create an application that gives them what they need. Who cares for the advantages for bussiness and educational markets. If it's good they'll buy it anyway.
Sweet.
Core to threedegrees is the group instant messaging
Um, that's called a chat room, and it's been done. Way to build a product based on a new feature.
Other stuff sound kinda interesting, but hardly revolutionary.
Why the imposed limits, anyway? Only 10 user in a group? Only 60 songs?
How is this different from using a Gaim/Shoutcast combo?
Software Wars
Go out into the world and you'll see that real people (i.e. people who will be running the world in 20 years) don't really have the slightest idea what linux is. I know everyone on Slashdot and their friends know what Linux is and use it daily, but Joe Public MAYBE has heard about Linux from a friend of his who is a CS major. If I were Microsoft, I'd be a lot more worried about Apple right now. Apple is making REAL inroads-- especially with the "NetGen." I can't tell you how many iBooks I see on campus. And people are happy with them.
One, where's the market? I mean rilly?
Two, this is supposed to make cash for MS how?
news.com.com he say:
Well the first thing is, does this market even exist? You see such people using AIM, ICQ etc all the time. This software is junk. Do the 'Net-Gen' (sic) care? No. They have other things to do than learn any more than the most trivial UI. As for heavy teenage net users, what about this, from the other article: What's with the arbitrary limitation? My kid sister's 'posse' (blech) is easily twice that big. Sounds like a mess. What are you supposed to call your group? 'J. Sixpack's buddies'? It doesn't work - that's like having gang leaders in the playground. That's not how kids do instant messaging. Is it? Drag-n-drop ('push') filesharing is a nice idea, but the kids already know about Kazaa, especially the heavy users. For anyone with enough bandwidth to stream nice audio to 10 buddies, they're way better off getting redistributable files from real P2P and letting friends/randoms pull them back off at their leisure.Right, point two... well hello, profit model? Looks like this is just another MSNIM-a-like project to be rolled into the OS. I don't see this as making any legit cash for Microsoft - it's not something the kids will pay for (and it's not corporate P2P). Can we say 'bundling'?
3 degrees might be great, especially if it has better than the usual godawful Microsoft UI. I suppose I shouldn't knock it till I've tried it (or a Linux clone...). And surely MS have got some market research to go on. But while making money out of kids is tricky (e.g. no-one likes adware), MS's strategy is obviously just to bundle, embrace and extend. And that rankles.
and they probably used them in this program for no reason other than to require you to update. They're probably things that they could have easily lived without. As a friend once told me, "WinXP was actually a functional product! Microsoft must have messed up! It WORKED! Then they put out sp1."
~Jon~
This space for rent, inquire within.
I'm in agreement with z_gringo, but in a sorta oblique way.
The description of the software indicates that threedegrees is a P2P app with a desktop interface. Groups are represented by icons that live on your desktop. Dragging files onto an icon causes members of that group receive copies of those files. This is slick.
Imagine having several groups--Thursday night bowling tourney, monthly staff colloquim, ad hoc governance committee, family, extended family, in-laws, etc.--all of whom could receive some set or subset of different files you choose. You send the files and then chat about what you've received. This is a low-fi version of virtual reality conferencing.
Popular chat clients do have a feature like this, but one of the most popular--AOL Insant Messenger--requires you to invite people 1 by 1. Seems to me threedegress admirably leverages P2P communications technology by means of a GUI.
I am anti-Microsoft as they come: their history makes me so. But threedegrees seems to be a significant application of a GUI to P2P technology. I also think the idea of musicmix is *very* interesting, given that it seems to preserve fair use without infringing on copyright (original owner must be online in order for threedegreed files to be heard).
I'll withhold final judgement until I can test a threedegree client on my Mac. Until then, threedegrees sounds pretty cool, so I'm game. (ugly EULAs and software hiccups notwithstanding)
blog
Most IM systems are OS agnostic. Do you think MS will publish their protocol?
Actually, Microsoft submitted the protocol to the IETF and it's all documented here.
We already have something similar to this in Sweden, called Lunarstorm. It's got picture uploads, friendfinders, guestbooks, discussion forums, interaction via SMS and mobile phones, voting, voice messages - you name it. It's a very feature-complete site and it's got an incredibly high market penetration among the youth of Sweden and I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I say that at least 70% of Swedish teens have a Lunarstorm account. It's a "community" on the outside, but Lunarstorm is used almost solely for meeting chicks (or guys, depending on gender/preference :)). Recently they've recently adopted a pay model where you can pay a small sum each month to get access to the 'plus' features. They're doing pretty well.
:)
So what am I getting at? Well, Sweden's a pretty small country, but the sheer momentum of teenagers registered on Lunarstorm creates a singularity that draws everyone in. I wouldn't be surprised if their market penetration among teens reaches 90% in a year or two, if they're not already there. If all your friends have Lunar accounts, you're going to get one, too. If Microsoft can gather the critical mass of teenagers, and deploy something like this in the ol' US of A, it could be massive. They'd get an instant reputation boost among younger people, a chance to market stuff to the teens (Lunarstorm has many insidious ways of doing this), a way of sneaking new software on people (Microsoft DRM mp3's are even in the article!) and, if they've got the balls, a new source of income provided they adopt some sort of pay model. Could be a smart move! Or, it could flop, of course. I'm no genie
I'll dare state this, however: it's all about the critical mass. If Microsoft are clever, they'll subtly make it about the boy-girl interaction. Powerful stuff, that!
they're 'in' only because the underground punk rock scene is experiencing a great revival. emo, hardcore, ska, old-school punk... lots of bands are getting more experimental and pushing the envelope when it comes to making music. the runoff is that people start thinking punk is cool, which makes the record companies want to cash in.
Avril Lavigne is a prime example. she gets paid to "act tough" whenever a reporter or photographer is in the area. in person she's reportedly a really sweet, nice girl. she's just a sellout, though. no self-respecting sensible teenager would really support her, as she goes against all the morals and ideals that the punk community has encouraged. i guess that's why the real punks hate her and the normal kids like her so much - she's a conformist, but a conformist who lets them tap into the image of punk and rock, without bothering them with the flak you get if you really are a punk.
if you want to have a taste of what's been going on 'behind the scenes', so to speak, try these bands:
Coheed and Cambria
The Used
Thrice
Killswitch Engage
At The Drive-In
Camp Kill Yourself (you might recognize their music from the Jackass movie)
Glassjaw
Finch
Mindless Self Indulgence
Rufio
RX Bandits
Showoff
Tsunami Bomb
Youth Brigade
enjoy.
It might look like I'm standing motionless, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away
While this is technically true, Microsoft did a very crappy job detailing this protocol. Several key steps and improvements in the protocol are not detailed, and that document is ridiculously out of date. I've tried emailing the original programmers to try to find a document that accurately described the protocol, but none of them took responsibility for it at all.
Basically, Microsoft really only released that document to try to make AOL look bad and help promote their own instant messenger. But the document doesn't give you nearly enough information regarding the protocol if you were to write your own MSN client....it's a start, but there's a considerable amount of reverse engineering involved.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
I'm right in the middle of the "Internet Generation", so I would expect this software that's targeted at me to appeal to me. It doesn't. Again, Microsoft shows its thorough incapacity to innovate (and I type this on my WinXP machine). Pretty much, they're saying that this threedegrees has three features: Chat, Winks, and Musicmix. The chat thing has already been done by n-1 different programs, (Trillian, AIM, MSIM, Yahoo!IM, etc.). All of these I find to be imperfect (tho' functional; I'm using AIM right now). I'd really like a messenger service that's tuned to fuse instant messaging and e-mail; that is, if I'm at my computer, I can communicate syncronously with a friend, but if I'm away, my friend can always leave a message. I don't see that happening with threedegrees. Winks? Winks? Are these animations supposed to excite me? Or insult me? 'nuff said. Musicmix? I don't really get that. From the looks of things, it's not well implemented. I could see a lot of fights breaking out over which song gets played when (at least, with folk like my friends). Will music actually get played, or will one person turn off another's music and play his own? So what would be a good product for the "Internet Generation?" I like messaging my friends. I can type a lot faster and more accurately than I can speak, and IMing allows me to carry on coherant conversations with half a dozen people simultaneously. Still, the messaging ought to be able to flex; good messaging should be able to allow for clear, effective communcation both synchronously and asynchronously. The Musicmix thing might be pretty neat, but it looks to be horribly implemented at the moment. I'd like to see some functions that allow moderation, and perhaps hosting privilges. I'd like to see something that can play games. Even board games like Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, or card games like Hearts, Rummy, Spades, and Spoons would be pretty cool. (Of course, original games would be welcome!) When I'm with my friends in real life, we normally wind up playing something; I'd like to do the same online. Do any 13-24 year olds think the threedegrees is cool? If so, speak up. I might just be odd.