Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Plans News Aggregator
wyldeone writes "ZDNet says Microsoft is planning on creating a news aggregation service similar to Google's Google News. It will draw headlines from over 4,800 sites. It will also provide customized feeds, similar to Googles News alerts. Here is the beta version of the site."
So, what is new here? Seriously.........Is this another case of Microsoft coming late to the game and saying "Oh, well, we have one too", or is this another case of Microsoft publicizing they have something in the works that will come out any time now to keep other folks from entering into the fray? Come on, if you are going to get into the game, offer something new. For instance, take a page from the Apple playbook when Apple realized a little late that mp3s and online music was the way to go, Apple put some thought and effort into things and came up with not only the iTunes music store, but also the iPod. Both of which were nice innovations and spurred other companies to improve their products.
From the looks of Microsoft's news bot site here it appears that ther innovations are links to Hotmail, shopping, other proprietary properties and news programs of either Microsoft and NBC, and notably in the Science/Health categories, we have business news about companies such as Boston Scientific rather than real Science news. It's also more bandwidth intensive than the Google news site.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
No innovation... why does Microsoft continue to just follow others? Seems to be their biggest flaw eh?
Only the pictures feature predominantly blue tones.
Ahh.. the good old "rip off something another companies done" move. Good to see they are still as innovative as ever. Doesn't google own any patents on this?
One OS
One People
One Nexus
I can't wait to see how they 're-write' links and searches
to 'enhance' your experience.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Finally a news service uncluttered with :)
anti-Microsoft stories.
Yet Another Web Site
Why is it that Microsoft feels the need to do everything Google does? Microsoft is not exactly losing money.
I'm waiting for the day that Microsoft announces that they are buying back all their stock just so they can do another IPO to be like Google!
I would wager that this news service will get embedded in the Longhorn desktop presentation layer. This would hide the IE browser from view (although its underlying tech would be the content server), allowing MS to further embed its applications further into the OS offering.
Considering MS owns MSNBC, I wouldn't be suprised if it's a bit bias towards it's own property.
I like Google partly for neutrality.
Competition = good. If this inspires Google to add another great feature or two, or MS to figure out something to draw the crowd their way, then I'll be happy it happened.
- way too late
- poor at copying
- have more conflicts of interest
- made it ugly
Odoyle Rules
Why does Microsoft copy so many ideas? With all their resources, shouldn't they be coming up with this stuff before everyone else?
Google's news site is much better I believe. Upon entering the MSN site I had a hard time figuring out what articles they actually had. The site is littered with ads. Way to go Google for keeping your site clean.
When I tried it, it was just repeating the word "rosebud" a lot. Gates must be getting wiggy in his old age.
Who needs 4800 news sources?
I have BBC, NYTimes, a few industry-specific, a few 'for interest' (e.g. Economist, New Scientist, Reason.com), a few for sport and one for UK TV Listings. Maybe a dozen tops and I am one of the most well-informed people I know.
Too much information = too easy to lose the salient stuff.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
I wish someone would write a good news "digester" that could help me read news from all these news "aggregators". For example, a simple client-side program that would constantly troll the aggregators and then each morning spit out a simple message like "nothing much new today" or "mostly boring stuff" and help me break my addiction to online news...heh...
Lol, at MS. Me too me too me too, they are like a 3 year old, always doing what the other kids are doing, just a little late and never as good...
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
Troll tuesday?
Come on, man. That's sooo 1999!
If you'll notice, there are already problems with the site. It has the same story posted twice, and that has happened with more than one story already!
yet more "innovation" from Microsoft - have the EVER thought of ANYTHING original.
Let's see...
An MS-bashing post.
On Slashdot.
Castigating MS for stealing ideas.
How original!
I guess if they had thought of something original they would be inventive, not innovative. I wonder why noone seems to understand the distinction.
I thought googles news interface was busy until I saw this
talk about not being able to see the wood for the trees
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
and you're in for a surprise.
Two wrongs may not make a right, but three
Notice all the links are referred through msn.com and moreover.com? Maybe they are just trying to figure out what's "popular" (which in itself is a little disturbing, coming from a news source -- I'd rather hear about what's "true" and "important"). But I'd rather not have two organizations I don't really trust looking over my shoulder, thank you very much.
The color between the stories don't contrast as well as google. It is hard to follow. I wish they would also remove the msnbc menu. If they are going to copy google they should at least learn that simple works and only put on the screen what it supposed to be there.
I think drudge started all of this. His site was so popular because you could get 10++ headlines and not have to scroll all over the place. I am unsure on why it has taken companies so long to realize that simple is good.
Something about a conflict, dumping physical memory, and then the browser went all blue and restarted. Strange, I've never seen anything like it.
Ummmmm, yea, Microsoft as a news provider. Just the job for a convicted monopoly. And don't say, "They're just getting news from other sites" because what you choose to cover is the biggest bias in the news industry.
I wish they would get over this illusion that they are a content provider. They are SUPPOSED to be a software company, and hell, I'll even throw the X-Box in that category. Maybe if they stopped trying to own one of everything and just concentrated on their damn OS, it would be worth buying.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
hello?
Ahh.. the good old "rip off something another companies done" move.
Enough about Apple! This thread is reserved for Microsoft bashing, thank you.
Ok, Slashdotters, here's your chance to googlebomb (hmmm, ok, guess we need a new catchphrase here) the MSN Newsbot. Go to the site and use the "Find Your News" search field to look for things like FOSS, SCO-MS interplay, RIAA, or get really nasty and search for things like goatse and other wrteched sites.
Let's give MSN's newest beta a warm sendoff...
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Without breaking copyright law? Are they really going to license content from every single site? Or will the Feds bust them like Adam McGaughey?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
newshub been doing news gathering for a long time..
google came and did it better..
Now MSN is throwing its hat in the ring. AOL will provide a web page with news/ other stuff based on what you want to see which is oddly good (It shows movies playing at the closest movie theaters..)
There a probably lots of others I'm missing.
Competetion is good. Hopefully everyone competes and makes theses sites better.
Win Win Win...
Come on Microsoft! Geez. With that whole RESEARCH department you have and $50 Billion, you'd think we'd see MORE than this tripe innovation from you! Oh wait that's right, you put all your time in the AESTHETICs, mouse cursors, icons, freaking large graphical interfaces that treat the user like a child and use up half the screen's space...
that has been up for months...
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
This is silly. Anyone who knows anything can tell you that there is only one source, http://fark.com/, for all the important news in the world.
IF newsarticle CONTAINS microsoft + internet explorer + bug THEN SEND TO null ELSE SHOW on page ...don't kill me because I can't program.
What google gets which many of its competitors don't is that people want 'light' sites, uncluttered from ads and large logos - and black writing on white background. It's not the major thing that google 'gets', but it's just one of many.
Microsoft "innovates" again.
at least the australian version says Beta..
The MS one is too busy, hard to follow. Whereas the Google one is as clean as can be expected for a screen with so much information and so many links.
So let me get this straight. Which beta is better? Do we really need a slashdot poll to know that answer? Didn't think so...
groklaw, wired and slashdot. The holy trinity of work based time wasting.
I could tell it was a Microsoft site without even looking at the URL. How? Easy, it failed to render correctly using a W3C complient browser.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Not only is Microsoft imitating success, but they are doing a bad job of it by adding several annoying elements. This works when you have a monopoly. Thank heavens for Google.
Does anyone actually use MSN Search?
Is anyone such a prisoner of Microsoft offerings that they don't have a friend who told them about Google?
the parent you are replying to is an ancient copy/paste troll.
Microsoft has a new news site similar to Google news. To find it, type "Microsoft News" into Google.
Unknown host pong.
To the casual observer that website sure looks like an MSNBC News site. It appears that what they are doing is stealing stories from all over and passing them off as MSNBC News stories. I mean, nobody is fooled into thinking Google News wrote all those stories on it's site, but if you went to this MSN page, it sure looks like it's all from MSNBC News. And we all know that the kind of people who actually visit MSN will think these are MSNBC stories. Granted, they probably aren't breaking any copyright laws here, but it is a bit dubious.
Well, it makes you want to stab your eyes out for one...
NMG
I jumped to the beta site and was intrigued by the "'Showgirls' Bares All in Self-Mocking DVD" I clicked and it took me to the wrong link. Yet another little bit of MS software presented to the public without being double-checked for accuracy. Following is the bad link, but don't bother, you'll just waste your time. http://g.msn.com/0PNENUS/1?http://c.moreover.com/c lick/here.pl?z180993149&z=50237909
Good ol' "push" technology.. was I the only one who truly liked PointCast? It was so convenient for me to get all of my news sources filtered individually for me, updated whenever I wanted.
Even though technology has changed around a lot, PointCast could still be relevant-- before it used to be a big deal to be able to go offline and read the stories because I was on dial-up, now it's a big deal because I use a laptop.
Do a search for 'Linux' there and on google. The first article on the MS site is "why linux isn't ready for the desktop", along with some vulnerabilities.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
if it supports RSS newsfeeds. I'm still annoyed that google won't do that and goes after people that do.
...when their own aggregator doesn't even know about this?
Anti-Trust Legislation: Evil or just Wrong?
Macs turn people gay.
Office XP: Best Software Ever!
Internet Explorer Holes Largley Fiction
Bill Gates Lands on Moon
Dennis Miller Funniest Man Ever
An Editorial by Clippy©
Better Computing Through Crashes
Spyware Ain't So Bad
Your Computer is Old, Buy a New One with XP Now
How I Caught a Cold from Viral Open Source
Windows Saved my Life!
Jesus Uses XP
MS Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Service Pack Two Will Cure Impotence
Child Killed by Linux Installer
etc
That is definitely funny but more interesting is that a lot of the links are to tech sites that aren't traditional news sources. Google searches mostly the sites of newspapers and tv news channels (although slashdot does appear on there every so often).
At first I thought that the title of the parent post was a joke, as in when most /.'ers think of Bourne, they think of shell. So we'd be surprised by seeing a link to the Bourne movie. Then I saw the link with the pictures below it of the Bourne movie, and thought, well maybe it actually has something about the Bourne shell. Regardless, the parent post is correct!!
1. Armed by tradition because of some colonial problems, care to enlighten us?
2. Saying all Americans are overweight is like saying all Britains have serious dental problems, ok.
3. One word, shag, really, no slang in the UK.
4. Yet another statement based on something other then fact,
seems like you've been getting facts from your television?
5. I agree with you on this, our Constitution has been turned into a relatively useless document by a bunch of asswipes, while are forced to study it in secondary school its not until much later that we are studying the past, shortly after figuring out who has done this to us we go out and do #1
6. Two words; rabbit, die-back.
7. If that were true I doubt Bush Jr. would have made it as far as he has.
8. umm, I watch the BBC for news, but what is that crap thats on in between the news? you have how many channels of that? You pay a use tax for it? nice.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
I was openminded about this, I tried that other news bot thing for a while. So I click on the link, and my Mozilla 1.7 under fluxbox in slackware linux kind a hangs... actually, the page took an extremely long time to load and not only did mozilla hang but my whole system did! Eventually it came up normally but it was as if it put the entire machine under a very heavy load ... so much so that the keyboard and mouse would not move. After a minute or two it came back... anyone else experience this?
FLR
... all I can say is "HA HA HA HA HA!"
See for your self. If you can read anything past the ugly blue-black-and-white font, you're a braver man than I.
Google news stories seem more interesting as well. MSNBC basically has a lot of US-related tabloid articles, while Google has some real news. An example:
World news according to MSNBC:
In contrast, Google has:
Also, Google allows you to go to country specific news feeds. I'm sorry, but MSN is going to have to do much better than this to steal my clicks. And before you argue that it's still beta, Google News had much better functionality than this before it first appeared on the Google front page.
Microsoft must view Google as their biggest threat, first the webcrawler, now the news. I guess since Gmail topped hotmail, now MS has to say "My p*nis is bigger than yours"
Search for Linux in http://newsbot.msnbc.msn.com(within first 20 hits):
:)
Opinion: Why Linux isn't ready for the Desktop
Vulns: Linux Kernel Unspecified Local Denial of Service Vulnerability
Vulns: Linux Kernel Floating Point Register Contents Leak Vulnerability
Vulns: Linux VServer Project ProcFS Weak Sharing Permissions Vulnerability
Vulns: Apache mod_userdir Module Information Disclosure Vulnerability
How Microsoft Can Embrace Linux
I love biased news source. So here I'm.
That's not true. I did a search with MSN Search on 'Linux' a minute ago and first results were traditional pro-Linux sites.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
well, it won't get any better than this for me anyway.
The American version can be found here:
;-)
http://newsbot.msnbc.msn.com
It's pretty much the same thing, but there it is anyway... Aren't I resourceful?
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
"other then fact"
Other THAN, you illiterate American twit. The rest of your 'rebuttal' is laughably poor and fails to counter any of the OP's points. Ooooh, so what if guns are a colonial tradition thing? There are many, many things we've had through history that we're now glad to be rid of. Should we bring back diseases too?
You're clearly a typical utterly clueless yank with no outside knowledge, who assumes that America doesn't have serious problems because the govt. says that everything's OK.
Sigh... When will you learn? You're now the most hated country in the world, and other countries laugh at your ignorance and problems.
I submitted this story to slashdot almost a year ago! (and it was accepted): http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/19/153124 6
It's even the same name folks, MSN Newsbot.
I know one - I use it all the time. In fact, I can't get enough of it. I spend eight hours a day using it. It's called Bob.
Is it just me or does this thing not even work on Macs? I'm using IE something or the other on OSX and I get nada - newsbot.msn.com no work. Tried it on PC and it looks like MSNBC to me. What a waste of electricity.
Don't worry: your brain will eventually work inspite of you.
1 - Buy yourself a gun To become a fully-fledged Yank, you'll need to get a weapon. Americans think that having more killing machines magically makes their country safer, and it helps them to walk around saying "I'll put a cap in your ass". Even though the concept of "no guns = no gun-related crimes" is alien to the average Yank, it'll give you a false sense of security in this country with the highest crime rates in the developed world.
You watch too much TV if you believe that everyone in this country owns guns. The fact is, this is a HUGE country, and it is almost as if we have many different sub-countries. Nashville is not like Chicago, which isn't like LA, which isn't like Phoenix, which isn't like Boston, which isn't like Houston, etc etc. The fact is, this country is a young one, and we were founded with guns. Guns have been here pretty much from the beginning, simply because we haven't been around that long. If a country was existing when guns were invented, then they would have to be introduced. For us, they have always been here. We needed them "back in the day" when this country was being created. We needed them to hunt and protect our lands, and unfortunately to conquer the Native Americans. But no country really has a spotless history, and that isn't the topic at hand. The fact is, guns are here to stay, whether we like it or not. It would be impossible to remove all guns from this country, we have way too many now.
- Put on at least 25 stone Skinny? Medium? Chubby? That won't cut it in the good ol' US of A. Because America has the highest obesty levels on the planet, you'll need to get those rolls of flab built up. Eating 18 waffles with Maple syrup for breakfast (and visiting Burger King five times in a day) is all natural when much of the world is suffering massive poverty. Get fat and fit in.
Overall, you are right - we are pretty overweight. But we aren't alone in that regard, we just seem to be the pioneers. While most of this is true, we also have some of the best athletes in the world. What? No comment?
3 - Learn the lingo We've talked about issues affecting society, but on a personal level you'll need more knowledge (or ignorance as it may be) to fit in. First, forget proper English. Confuse "your" with "you're". Say "must of" instead of "must have". Whenever anything interesting occurs, say "shucks" repeatedly. Instead of clever spontaneity or witty insults, call people "asswipes". It's funny!
So are you talking about speaking proper English, or writing it? You seem to be confused. Since you are uninteresting, I'll refrain from saying "shucks", which I haven't heard since I was 10, and that was on a bad TV sitcom.
4 - Throw away all maps, history books etc. To really feel a part of American society, you must lose all knowledge of the world. Forget where Poland is. Scrap your knowledge of the lengthy Chinese history. Make cretinous remarks like "India? Is that in Africa?". Because ALL that matters is America, and it doesn't matter how pathetic you look to educated people the world over.
Everyone else in the world is educated? Interesting concept, although it is completely wrong. This is an absolute myth, through and through.
5 - Become totally irrational and nonsensical Spout on about the Constitution, and then make drastic changes to it. Talk about "freedom of speech" and watch TV programmes about the Ku Klux Klan. Rant on about market freedom, and sit back as companies run riot and destroy the economy with their anti-competitive practices. Essentially, act idiotic at all times.
Everyone else in the world is totally rational. Banning religious symbols in public, starving its population to feed the military, killing people for speaking out against the government, supporting Bush in his vendet
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
For the record (and not that I like the guy): There is no Bush Jr. W is not a Jr. because he doesn't have the same name as his father -- George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush. Different names.
Uhhh....no...the first site is linux.org ...troll
Finally we know what PassPort is for.
I would name some but you are a moronic troll so why should I bother.
We were talking about the news site, not the search engine.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
http://msn.co.uk used to be a news aggregator years ago, when MSN first dumped the "lets try to be an online tv station" and went for a portal strategy, for a good few years it was a personalisable news aggregator.
So, maybe Google News is the copy...
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Are people really still interested in news aggregators ? It seems the technology has been around for 5 years are so, I mean seriously. I'm much more interested in seeing people parse opinions from news sites like http://www.blabble.com will soon do. Showing me what hundreds of people wrote about are of little use to me
I used to wonder why the DOJ let Microsoft off the hook. Then Bush spurned the Taliban's offer to give us bin Laden. Must be one of those "conservative values" thingies.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
It's slower than google news. Because it uses the left hand side MSNBC toolbar (with its less than instantaneous menus) less actual news fits on my screen.
Finally, this statement is somewhat disturbing.
"Newsbot (beta) responds to your reading preferences. Clicking on articles determines what we base your recommendations on."
MSNBC does go out of its way to label AP wire service stories as such, which is a nice touch-- I really don't need to read the same story 700 times.
However, google does print the headlines of stories from three sources for each news item, which is more useful that a simple "Also covered in Sun, Herald-Tribune, and ABC". Speaking of which, is that the Chicago Sun, International Herald Tribune, and American Broadcasting Company? Or is it The Sun, Southwest Florida Herald Tribune, and Australian Broadcasting Company?
It's all so... cluttered.
That's my first reaction; I was expecting better, considering the resources they have.
No opinion on the content yet.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I heard this is going to be an Oceania-only release. Any news when it'll be available in Eurasia?
All Microsoft bashing aside, there was one thing I noticed that I'd like to see in Google's news service.
It was a feature similar to Amazon.Com's "Other people who bought this item also bought.." idea. When you click on a news story you are taken to a page with all associated stories with that story and also a list of links to other news that people who read that article also read. I've always liked the idea of showing me things that I might be interested in as well as long as unique identifying data is not being collected.
Now, perhaps Google has this already, and if so please give me a link to an example of their news service doing it.
Thanks
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
This is Prostetnic Borg-o Gates of the Galactic Microsoft Planning Council.
We are about to build a Galactic Longhorn Expressway through your system and, regretably, your Open Source has been scheduled for demolition.
Plans have been on display at 1 Microsoft Way for 5 of your Earth years, locked in a filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the front saying "Beware of the DMCA".
The demolition will take slighly more than 2 of your Earth decades, just as soon as we've got XP Service Pack 2 working.
Prostetnic Ballmer will be passing amongst you shortly with a collection box into which you may deposit your Linux CDs and free software floppy disks as part of the amnesty.
Thank you for your time...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
'bout as original as attacking the /. group-think....
Microsoft plans new aggravator..
Made perfect sense to me at the time... I was just surprised that they'd put that in a press release.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
from the search, will we get those up the popular news list?
For everyone complaining...
1. It's beta, it's gonna be ugly.. big deal.
2. It wasn't Google's innovation either.
3. Competition is good. Isn't that what you champion on this site anyways?
It's just "POTUS."
And I agree, he should ride something domestic (if Trek's frames are indeed made in China).
What ads? There are no ads *at all* on the main page. Not one. When you click on an article title, it takes you to the actual article on the originating webserver, so there might be ads there; but it's beyond MSNBC's control at that point.
Do a search on Microsoft on Google's news search and the first article is about MS legal battle with the EU ("Date set for Microsoft's day in EU court").
Maybe both news engines are biased. (And before you go into "But its actual news!" so is the "why linux isn't ready for the desktop".) Or maybe its the poster who is biased?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Whinging" is a totally valid word; it's just not used in America. Because, you know, English was around far, far longer than your pitiful country.
The fact that you spent so long replying says it all, really. You just can't accept that there are major flaws in your country. You're told at school that America is great, the govt. tells you that America is great, and you want to believe that America is great.
Well, you need a change. Go and live in Switzerland or Sweden for five years, and take note of the high standard of living, low crime rate, intelligent people and general good quality of society. THEN make your opinion up about America.
Or isn't MS allowed to do that any more?
While we're waiting, why not try newsmap, which does some interesting things with Google's news feed.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
after watching outFoxed I find this particularly disturbing. OutFoxed is an excellent just released documentary on the non-journalism of Fox News. Groklaw has shown how microsoft's news results skewed results from the SCO case. we need to be careful about our news sources. All of them.
Emphasis on 3rd line added by me....
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Kansas City Star - 12 hours ago Popularity Rank: 17 Similar Stories: 23
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Also covered by: CBS News BBC AP via News-Journal Kentucky.com Times Union ABC 7
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Register for passes? To what, the assault?
Thought for the day:
Why does the a software developer, that happens to have nearly monopoly on the market, suddenly want to tell people whats news and what's not. ?
Perhaps someone at Micro$oft has been $leeping ... or $lacking off! Better not tell the Bill!
Sure, MS competes with Google.
But MS does not compete with Linux, only spreads FUD indirectly thru SCO.
Never! We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia! The MSNBC archives will confirm this (check in a few hours, the "history-rewr^H^H^H^Hupdate" feature is still buggy).
Microsoft Plans News Aggregator
...?
Did anyone else read this as "Microsoft Plans News Aggravator"
-kgj
-kgj
...is an RSS feed URL for it's news site that accepts search parameters in the URL. That way users can create infinite customizable news feeds to meet their interests. It would be just like executing a news search on their server, but the results would be returned to my aggregate in RSS XML so it can skip stuff I already read.
Google announced today that they were going to use their IPO billion$ to write and market a new operating system and office productivity suite for the PC architecture.
http://www.msnoogle.com
We tell you what's going on, and you will believe...
So for open source news are they going to have little Pandora's box symbol? Or maybe a Hammer and Sickle?
funny, but his question still stands... Microsoft is an 'evolution' company, apple is an 'innovation' company.
Micrsoft, 9/10s of the time, has crap versions of there product for the first 1 or 2 releases... They don't rewrite, they just keep selling and keep improving... Look at Office. It wasn't great(read, all that usable) in its early version, but they kept revising it and eventually it gained the critical mass... Windows, first 3(!) versions of Windows shouldn't have been released to the public, but 3.11 came around, and it was entirely horrible.
Apple, they innovate. They are more likely to have an amazing first version of what they release... (save OS X, but that project was so huge they couldn't AFFORD to have it be initially what 10.1 or 10.2 is, an OS is an evolution-based product by design). iPod, Keynote. iPod set the gold standard for mp3 players on its first version. Keynote: amazing presentation software, clean, super easy... but where is v2?
Microsoft: Find 'perfection' through revision, they may not be best first, but there product have the weight and time behind them to eventrually be feature for feature superior(security not with standing).
Apple: Determine 'perfection' prior to ever showing it to the public. They may not be the biggest, but a first version Apple product is generally equal to a second or third version third-party product in design and features(and you pay for it!).
Look at the innovation, baby!
All the text renders a bit off in FireFox...Wow, I never would have thought Microsoft would stoop so low to make other browsers view their page incorrectly! Not...
And guess what, it's not even properly coded!
Take a look!
It found 20 stories less than a week old for my home town in the UK. 90% of the stories have been in the local papers over the weekend so they were not new to me. The other 10% made for an interesting read.
The graphical layout needs work and the front page seemed to be filled with US centric stories.
Right, I've seen enough, back to buying the local papers.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
This just in. Microsoft has announced a beta version of a revolutionary new news aggregation service to be called "Dotdotbackslash." Unlike automatic services such as Google News, this one relies on the human judgements of hundreds of Microsoft MVPs to locate and make available the most relevant information needed for IT managers.
Slogan: "News for PHBs--Words that Buzz"
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Doesn't look real Microsoft like.
More stylesheeting, and more XML-like than normal (though still missing a doctype).Freaky.
Perhaps outsourcing is making Microsoft move like tar (rather than a rock) towards web-standards?
This article was posted back in Nov of '03. go figure.
...try searching for "internet explorer" under Articles
The layout looks like crap
Shrub, sounds like bub, which is what Bush is.
As to the original post, good one, so true.
The U.S. nation is a bit like the kid who has just discovered religion and sets out to evangelise everyone else. Thing is, everyone else has heard it before and couldn't give a shit now. So their rebuttal is to say, 'I am right, you are wrong' and then proceeds to arm themselves up to the teeth with as many cretenous guns as possible, and go preach the Gospel.
All that the rest of the sane world can do; is to sit back a bit, wait till the grumpy, pushy kid has run out of steam, then go slap them down for being a pain the arse all these years.
Try "Microsoft Sucks" in their beta and on the Google News search. Interesting enough, there are only two articles from MSN's search. Both are critism light, while Google News comes back with articles from Linuxworld, Slashdot, etc.
I think I will stick with Google News for now. At least it is not obviously spinning responses for the home team. I.E. the fact that the lead article today in Tech as about Google being shut down by a virus yesterday.
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
Absolutely. But for you to use a word that is not used in America (technically the United States of America - just calling it America is kind of ignorant) is sort of a faux pas on your part. It is a British word, so why would you use it when composing a post towards Americans? It doesn't show that you have a better vocabulary, just a different one. Whooptie doo.
The fact that you spent so long replying says it all, really. You just can't accept that there are major flaws in your country. You're told at school that America is great, the govt. tells you that America is great, and you want to believe that America is great.
And how would you know what they tell us in school? I can accept the flaws of my country, but it sounds like *someone* may be a little jealous. Otherwise, why would you spend the time verbally attacking the USA? Upset that you can't win a Tour de France?
Well, you need a change. Go and live in Switzerland or Sweden for five years, and take note of the high standard of living, low crime rate, intelligent people and general good quality of society. THEN make your opinion up about America.
Umm, that would give me a better opinion of Switzerland or Sweden, not the USA. (oops, there is your faux pas again) Perhaps you should come live here for 5 years in order to get a more accurate opinion of this country.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Or maybe it's because there's a lot more anti-ms news on the internet then anti-linux.
And in other similar to Google news...
we are building a religion
a limited edition
we are now accepting callers
for these pendant key chains
I've been building my own news aggregate too
same sort of idea, let the user see what they want, do some searching and browsing by category
i really want to do something like slashdot does and let you pick the channels that show up by default, but I just haven't gotten there yet
anyways, it's at http://fooey.net/NewsArchives/
only problem is the stupid thing is too addicting, and I end up spending WAY too much time reading the hundreds upon hundreds of articles scrolling through it every day
The top two in the most popular list right now are dupes.
I rather like how they have http://g.msn.com/0PNENUS/1?http://c.moreover.com/c lick/here.pl?z181268067&z=50237909 an article saying Google's IPO is too high on their anti-google newsbot.
Oh joy, instead of focusing on the new os and trying to get it out before the year 2020, microsoft ventures out into other areas where it probably shouldn't be.....
Go to Google News, what do you get? A nice, spaced out, clear interface, search box clearly located, the categories clearly separated and the source for each article clearly marked.
... A HUGE MSNBC logo, links to the rest of MSNBC scattered everywhere, a big MSNBC navbar on the left, and the actual news squeezed into the right, huddled together in a claustrophobic manner that almost hurts to look at, with the cites for each article tiny and easy to overlook at the end of each blurb.
Go to this MSN thing, what do you get..?
You know what? For the moment, I don't care whose news aggregation algorithm is better. Even if I wasn't a rabid MS-boycotting "fanboy" I'd stay far away from this MSNBC thing, because (1) I find it rather unacceptable that the page layout seems almost to be presenting all of this as MSNBC content rather than what it is, news aggregation and (2) Google offers an easy to read, easy to follow, and easy to use site layout and design.
As usual, not only does MS feel compelled to do "whatever their competitors are doing", but when they do it they do it in a self-serving and shoddy manner.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
This company has been doing it for a while. I have done some work for them, and have been impressed with what you get out of it.
http://www.customscoop.com
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise - William Shakespeare
Topix.net also classifies all the news into 150,000 categories including 30,000 local pages with every city and town in the US.
Both Topix.net and Yahoo News have RSS/XML feeds as well.
Microsoft is using moreover.com to supply its news (As mentioned in the Mercury News Merc Article)
-AS
I did. The 14th link is exactly that. Interestingly, the 8th article is about how Microsoft could embrace Linux. Meanwhile, the first link is about Linux gaining steam in China. I don't see anything slanted there. All the other articles (by title) do not seem to be pro-Microsoft.
....who read the head line as "Microsoft Plans News Aggrevator"?
If you mouse over the URLs you will see that newsbot is entirely powered by Moreover.
I checked one the international feeds -- the UK one -- and it's much less fugly. Still nowhere near as good as Google News Canada, but at least it's not eye-tearingly bad.
NBC appears to be source of the horrifying bad taste.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Oh my, that's bad. They have turned on the fire hose of DHTML/Shockwave ad-in-the-way-of-what-you-are-trying-to-read ads. Every one has a different way to turn it off so you have to hunt around for it each time. That's sad, really sad.
-Mike
When did Microsoft start publishing sites with "Beta" in the masthead? Come on, we know you are ripping off Google, but have a little shame and try not to make it so obvious!
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I don't care how good it is. When Microsoft actually steps up and builds something new that people really want, then maybe.
This is just a 'me too' entry that will, sadly, get some share because these kinds of things always do.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Blogging because I can...
http://www.newsimages.com/ Seem to do a fine job.
People are getting more voracious for news these days. To satisfy the online news appetitie there are several sites scuh as Google News, Yahoo News, Newstrove, Moreover News Services , Topix.net and now MSN with their News Bot. Microsoft has just launched the beta test of Newsbot, a customized search-driven news . MSN News Bot offers personalization by searching on topics, and the service suggests stories based on what visitors have previously read.
- google-news-comparison.html
But I find Google News more usefriendly and systematic, why doesn't Microsoft employ some good usability expert who can enlighten them on inetrface designing.
I compared MSN and Google News by searching for India on both MSN Newsbot & Google News and found that on Newsbot results obtained were containing mostly yesterdays Criket Match headlines, whereas the google had identified them to be same and related, And arranged the other related news links below the the first result itself instead of showing different criket headlines.
Right now I cannot see the advantage of a search history on MSN but I do see the advantage of finding the related stories covered by different news sources. Is history really so useful ? , 'cos mostly people will be using one or two words to make the searches and not some complex string and may be they would be using the same search words daily. But on the other side the collections of history links would be a sure advantage for some people who might be drilling for something more specfic or 'hard to find info / not so populated topic' and trying different combinations.
The the advantage of MSN Newsbot over Google News is that Newsbot has more sections and topics in the navigation and makes use of Java Scripts so that you can navigate the respective sections > subsections > and related headlines just over the roll of your mouse.
One thing leaves me confusing , what does Microsoft wants to become, it is confused about its own identity or doing some sourch searching.
- Is there a need for Microsoft to become the next google ?
- Is Microsoft really seeing a great opportunity in News and Search Engines market ?
- Or simply it doesn't have anything else to do ? Microsoft has started a online mag slate and is now thinking of wiping it off. Why it doesn't concentrate on Browser Wars and try to give some peace to the exisitng users of Internet Explorer who are under constant threat. Microsoft seems to be concentrating on Mass or larger share of consumer market, even its patents are also very pathetic. With the kind of cash it has, it should now support real technological inventions or innovations.
And last but not the least I hate both of them for not providing the syndication feature through RSS.
Also posted on my blog http://sanspeak.blogspot.com/2004/07/msn-news-bot
Microsoft has already shown they are the kings of user interfaces and windows slickness. They could not only build office applications that run on windows they could completely overtake the windows side of linux. Its no sweat for microsoft to abandon their shoddy kernel, no one cares about it anyway, people just want a familiar bunch of windows to click on and their application to work. By doing realtively little microsoft can open up an entire new market using their competition as another medium to plug their product. KDE and Gnome are the only real competition that windows has and for a relatively cheap price microsoft could sell just the windows enviroment that would be running on a stable, secure linux kernel and charge enough to make it worth it for them and their customers. Whats more with the size of the company and the amount of developers that they have to throw at the open source code they could have major implications towards the general direction that it goes. Just think in the future you could find yourself running a windows for linux hybrid envoriment and playing games on a directX for linux port!
I'd say anything that starts with a grammar flame should be right out.