November 13th, 2008

Microsoft gives Windows Live a social networking makeover

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 8:15 am

Categories: Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Mobile, Social Networks, Twitter, Yahoo

Tags: Network, Microsoft Windows Live, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Social Networking, Operating Systems, Software, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion

Microsoft have announced a major overhaul of its Windows Live service that, similar to Yahoo’s ‘Open Strategy’, rewires the company’s suite of consumer web-based products — e-mail, instant messaging, photo sharing, blogging and more — to turn them into one interconnected social network. To do that, Microsoft is leveraging a user’s existing Windows Live Messenger contacts to create an instant friends list across all Windows Live properties.

And in a feature that borrows directly from Facebook, which Microsoft invested in last year, the new Windows Live includes a a “what’s new” feed that aggregate a user’s activities on Windows Live and third-party site across the web. Initial partners include Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, WordPress and Yelp — though no sign of Facebook yet, despite that hefty investment.

See also: Yahoo wants to be your social web ‘control panel’ too

The strategy Microsoft is adopting is simple and a rather familiar one. The company wants to become a user’s one stop shop for all things social on the web. And conceding that it isn’t the market leader, and will probably never be, when it comes to the majority of social web products — aside from IM where Windows Live Messenger is number one — the new Windows Live is also attacking the social networking aggregator space, putting it in direct competition with singly-focused products such as FriendFeed or the social networking aggregator features of monolithic networks e.g. Facebook Connect. Read the rest of this entry »

October 17th, 2008

Yahoo wants to be your social web 'control panel' too

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 9:41 am

Categories: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, MySpace, Social Networks, Yahoo

Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Control Panel, Social Web, Steve O'Hear, Web, Facebook, Channel Management, Marketing

Yahoo has begun rolling out a new profile page for its users as part of its ‘Yahoo! Open Strategy’, a major project to rewire the company’s web properties to make them more “open and social“.

Described by Jim Stoneham, the company’s Vice President Communities, as a “centralized control panel”, the new Yahoo! Profiles will let users manage their “identity, activities, interests, and connections across Yahoo! — and eventually the entire Web”. While a unified user profile and friends list across all of Yahoo’s offerings - Flickr, Yahoo Messenger, Mail etc. - seems like a no-brainer, Stoneham’s reference to a social ‘control panel’ for the entire Web is far more ambitious and sounds very similar to the thinking behind recent products from Facebook (Facebook Connect), MySpace (Data Availabiliy), Microsoft (Mesh) and Google (Friend Connect).

See also: Powering Facebook’s proverbial brain: your Identity, Social Graph, and Lifestream data

Although each company’s implementation differs, the broad concept (often disingenuously dressed up as data-portability) is the same. First, offer users a single place to maintain their profile and manage their social graph (friends list) that can then be synced with third-party sites through a publicly available and secure API. That way any update to your central profile or a new connection added, ripples through to those other social destinations that are linked, and at the same time conveniently locks users into the original source of that data.  Secondly, enable certain data to flow back in - any social activity elsewhere on the Web - so that the central profile also acts as a lifestream or social web aggregator. The end result is a kind of ’social control panel’ for the web OS, a term that Facebook, MySpace, Microsoft and Google don’t actually use, but which Yahoo is actively embracing.

March 25th, 2008

Microsoft in "spam" partnership with five social networks

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 11:32 am

Categories: Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Social Networks

Tags: Partnership, Network, Microsoft Windows Live, Spam, Microsoft Corp., Data Portability, Social Networking, Business Structures, Microsoft Windows, Online Communications

I’m not sure whether to call this data portability or just making it easier for social networking services to spam a user’s contacts. But either way, Microsoft have announced partnerships with LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Bebo and Facebook, to enable Windows Live Messenger users to looks for contacts on either of the five social networking sites and vice versa.

Creating a “two-way street”, as a Microsoft calls it, the partner social networks will utilize the company’s recently announced Windows Live Contacts API so that members can import Windows Live contacts to their respective sites. — and in a return of favor, Microsoft is introducing a new website (www.invite2messenger.net) that people can visit to invite their friends from any of the partner social networks to join their Windows Live Messenger contact list. Read the rest of this entry »

April 9th, 2007

Microsoft brings Windows Live Messenger to XBox 360

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 10:17 am

Categories: Instant Messenger, Microsoft, Social Networks

Tags:

Microsoft has announced a major update to the XBox 360 which brings Windows Live Messenger functionality to its games console, connecting the device to the millions of users for whom 'Messenger' is already their IM client of choice. Right now 360 users can input text using a virtual on-screen keyboard or choose to plug in a USB one. However, later this year, Microsoft will release a new input device that combines a traditional XBox controller with a QWERTY thumb-board.

Along with the recently added IPTV capabilities, this further positions the XBox 360 as Redmond's trojan horse designed to deliver Internet services into our living rooms.

The social networking revolution will be televised

Xbox LIVE has really become the largest social network on television — Microsoft's Jerry JohnsonAll three of the 'next generation' consoles have added various degrees of social networking functionality, that goes beyond online multi-player gaming. Sony has perhaps the most ambitious plans, with the Playstation 3's 'Home' — a 3D, avatar-based social network which takes its cues from virtual worlds like Second Life, but with Sony controlling most of the content. Nintendo has also indicated that it's considering expanding its avatar-based Mii concept into a fully-fledged social network. However, with XBox's introduction of Windows Live Messenger, it has a distinct advantage in that it's able to tap into an existing user-base which goes beyond gamers — a strategy that may hint at further ways in which the 360 could support Microsoft's other existing social web services.

February 8th, 2007

The Social Web weekly: MySpace mobile in Europe; Joost on Mac; White label SNS faceoff; OpenID; and more

Posted by Steve O'Hear @ 11:42 am

Categories: Microsoft, MySpace, Social Networks, The Social Web weekly, Video Sharing

Tags:

The Social Web weekly is a quick-fire roundup of some of the news, announcements and conversations that have occurred throughout the week, in the social software and media space.

• MySpace goes mobile in Europe. Following similar deals with Helio and Cingular in the US, Vodaphone's European customers will soon be able to access MySpace from their handsets, including publishing updates to the site and uploading photos. Cellphone operators clearly see social software as a great opportunity to sell more data-usage to their customers. Last year the video sharing sites, YouTube and Revver, both struck exclusive partnerships with Verizon.
• Webjam opens to the public. Webjam which I described as Netvibes meets Vox, has gone live; users no longer need to be part of the private beta program in order to access the site.
• The battle of the white label social networks. It all started off with Om Malik posing the question of whether, in a post-MySpace era, social networks should be considered more as a feature, rather than a product in themselves (which in most cases, I agree — see my 'Five ways Digg could be more social'). Marc Canter wasn't happy because Malik didn't mention his People Aggregator. Then Ben Werdmuller weighed in noting that the open-source Elgg didn't make the list either, even though - according to him - it's a better product than People Aggregator. Canter then responded, refuting Werdmuller's claim — and getting a few facts wrong along the way, which Werdmuller was happy to point out. I'm exhusted already, but it does highlight how competitive the white label "MySpace in a box" market is — as social networks are fast becoming a commodity.
• Joost releases Mac alpha. The P2P online video project Joost - previously known as The Venice Project - released its Mac alpha earlier in the week to a select few Beta testers. I was lucky to get hold of a copy (thanks to NewTeeVee) and my first impressions are that it's a slick application with picture quality comparable to some channels on cable television. I've probably said too much already - I clicked through a Non Disclosure Agreement - but, when I have the go-ahead, I'll be posting a proper review.
• YouTube owners cash-in. Chad Hurley and co. are selling some of the Google shares that they acquired when Google purchased YouTube. Who said that there would never be another "two guys in a garage"? (OK, there were three).
• Microsoft to support OpenID. Bill Gates has announced that Redmond will work with the "web 2.0 crowd" to support OpenID. OpenID is an open and decentralised system that allows users to log-in to multiple sites via a single user-name — something which I've previously argued would go someway to combating social network fatigue. But what's in it for Microsoft? Gates said that in return it hoped OpenID would support its own CardSpace standard.