Windows Live Messenger 8.0 Beta Opinion Piece
It's an opinion piece, you may disagree.
A fresh new build of Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger was leaked/released today. The updates are absolutely beautiful. The successor to MSN Messenger will be very well recieved when it goes public, let me assure you. Messages sent in succession are now grouped into one "Terrill says:" bullet cleaning the conversation history up dramatically. I honestly see no direct competition to this new messaging product (and no, I'm not blind). I've tried Gaim, Trillian, Yahoo Messenger, Miranda (very pretty), I use GTalk and not one has the stuff to compete at this level. Upon removal of the advertisements you are left with a beautiful user interface that would make iTunes jealous. Gone are the childish icons of years previous. This thing is serious!
One thing that I would like to see (an I'm sure that we will) is the integrated search bar be hooked up to Microsoft's Live search (which is now in beta) instead of the current MSN offering. Honestly I have never thought much of the Microsoft's MSN unit (referring to msn.com) and will be glad to see it go!
Google released a major update to its instant messaging offering Google Talk earlier this month. It now supports display pictures and slight customization of the conversation window. This is the only feature that GTalk has over MSN right now, and honestly its really strange when you analyze it. Why does the client which basically prides itself on being as simple as possible start skinning the thing which is of most importance? Arguably this can be benefical to readability, but really takes up a lot of space at the same time.
Advertisements
There is a major opportunity going seemingly un-noticed. Search engines have taken this to the extreme with what must be considered the tiniest pieces of information in the best of lights. If they are going to display advertisements make them contextual. There is infinetely more information to work with in a messaging client, think message logs!
This is also a potentially awesome research tool. You can tweak the algorithm as many times as needed until its perfect all the while recording which worked best and under which situation.
Skinning
The skinners are hard at work once again on the new Windows Live Messenger and will undoubtably be releasing some outstanding new skins for the final client. It seems like those guys just keep out-doing eachother. Each new skinner takes what everyone thinks are the 'limits' of skinning, and throws them out the window. This time it was a bit different. Microsoft completely changed the way that they store and use images in their XML user interface files. It must have taken about 2+ months for the skinners to find a full work around this problem. It really impresses me at how strong that online community is, long live it.