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Filed under: Video, Microblogging

Twitter working on live video tweets?

According to an unsourced story from the Telegraph, Twitter's founders have been throwing around the idea of bringing live video posts to the site. The post describes mobile video uploads posted directly to users' profiles, as opposed to posting links to short videos, a la Tweetube or Twiddeo, but there's not much more to the story. If the rumors are true, it's going to bring some speculation about whether this is the best use of Twitter's resources.

Twitter still has spam problems to deal with, as well as at least three other major new features that are rolling out right now: geolocation, user lists and a new format for retweets. Without more details, we don't know where the storage space and bandwidth are going to come from: will video be a drain on the Twitter experience? Now that the service is pushing between 10,000 and 25,000 tweets a minute, there's a lot to consider when building out new features.

So, Download Squad readers, would you use a Twitter video service? Let us know in the comments and the poll below.

UPDATE: Looks like the folks at Mashable got a quote from Twitter founder Biz Stone, denying any plans for video features: "Haven't read the piece but no video hosting. 140 characters of text including spaces. You know the drill!"

Would you use a Twitter video feature?

Filed under: Internet, web 2.0

We're covering the Crunchies, live



Nik Fletcher and I are in the Herbst Theatre in downtown San Francisco covering the 2nd annual Crunchies -- billed as "our sometimes kitschy and irreverent awards ceremony" celebrating the best of the web. Or something. Perhaps Fake Steve Jobs said it best in this acceptance speech video.

Follow downloadsquad on Twitter for up-to-date activities, and at the end of the ceremony we'll provide a wrap-up. Who knows, maybe Loren Feldman will do one-handed pushups on the stage and prove just how weak the rest of us really are.

Update: It's currently the Crunchies version of halftime, with Paul Graham of Y Combinator talking about how startups can survive in these trying economic times...

Update 2: And now a few questions with Marissa Mayer, again about how crappy the economy is and advertising, startups, blah, blah. (Note: Most of the people backstage are filthy rich).

Best web app: Google Reader

The rest on the next page...

Read more →

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Microsoft, Beta

Live Messenger 2009 Beta Looking Good


If you haven't checked it out yet, the Windows Live Messenger 2009 Beta is now available for download.

Yes, it's the same horrid installer. It has obviously undergone some changes, though, and isn't quite as bad as the previous version. My apps downloaded and installed on the first try, a stark contrast to my numerous failures with the last Live Installer.

Live Messenger's UI has received a lot of attention, including a much improved chat window. Display pictures and the chat toolbar slide in and out of view, and the conversation styling is clean and readable. I'd like to see tabbed conversation windows, but there's still no sign of that.

Read more →

Filed under: Utilities, Web services, Microsoft, Social Software, BlackBerry, web 2.0

RIM and Microsoft announce Windows Live services for Blackberry handsets

windows live search develop for crackberry
RIM and Microsoft have announced a deal that will officially bring Windows Live Services -- specifically Hotmail and Messenger -- to Blackberry handsets. Has hell frozen over? We wouldn't know. What we do know is the two companies have been rivals in the mobile industry up until now, but they both gain significantly from agreement.

Microsoft is no stranger to the idea of playing in a competitor's sandbox (remember Office for Mac?). By making Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail more accessible on the Crackberry, the company further pushes its communications services towards mass standardization especially in the business world. RIM also benefits from the agreement in the same way Apple benefits from Office for Mac: an OS is only as good as the software on it.

Messenger on Blackberry should retain most of its functions. It looks like users will be able to do the usual: IM, set status, pull up buddy lists, save conversations, use emoticons, and even send and receive files. While it looks like users can join group chats, creating group chats seems to be absent from the feature list.

Filed under: Design, Internet, Productivity, Web services, Microsoft

Microsoft launches Windows Live Events

Microsoft launches Windows Live EventsMicrosoft is getting into the events business with their latest launch, Windows Live Events.

Windows Live Events is a part of the ever-growing Live suite of products that allows users of Windows Live Spaces to both share and plan events and send out invitations. The collaboration also continues through to the Windows Live Calendar where users can manage and plan events as well as set and receive alerts. Events can easily be personalized using custom templates that can include photos, videos and blog posts. When the event is complete, users can share photos and discussions based on the event.

Of course you need a Windows Live id to create an invite, but people that are viewing do not. Other Similar invitation tools include Evite, and MyPunchbowl.

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Microsoft

Microsoft buys shopping comparison engine JellyFish

Microsoft buys shopping comparison engine JellyFish

Microsoft has just acquired JellyFish, a comparative shopping engine.

The team in Redmond Washington has been working on shopping and commerce components for Live Search, and the recent addition of JellyFish to the Live team could mean some new improvements for the MSN Shopping space.

Jellyfish calls itself the "internet's first buying engine". The service pieces together the shopping puzzle with information and content relating to the particular item you might be interested in and presents you with trusted merchants to take your pick from. Jellyfish makes money by taking a share of the revenue associated with the purchase and actually split it with the buyer. Advertisers in the JellyFish marketplace compete by paying more to get higher on the listings. This in turn makes the end price lower. Everyone's happy. Customer got their product cheaper, and merchant got a sale.

What does this mean for users of Live.com search? We're sure a few more highly targeted and relevant product links will be appearing in the search results. But the real question is, will Microsoft continue the JellyFish revenue sharing model, or keep all that cash for themselves?

Filed under: Business, Internet, Blogging, Web services, Microsoft, Search

Microsoft gets set to launch new Live.com Search interface

Microsoft gets set to launch new Live.com Search interface

Microsoft is headed towards the rollout of a new Live.com search today, including a brand spankin' new interface.

There will be a gathering in Mountain View at the Microsoft campus for industry insiders to get a glimpse at Microsoft's latest search interface and redesign today. The new redesign will see a refreshing look for the search interface taking cues from both Ask and Google Universal Search. MSN Shopping will also get tied into the search results for consumer product results, making for an all around better user experience.

Akram Hussein, a Windows Live Platform Program Manager caught a glimpse of the new look while on his home PC, and managed to snap a few shots of the cleaned up design. He has since pulled down the post with images from his website but we did manage to get copies and have compared them with the current Live.com search results. We will have to wait and see what else is truly unveiled as all information from the meeting will be under an embargo for later this evening.

In more MSN news, there is also talk of MSN Video adding instant start and less intrusive ads in video content.

UPDATE: Microsoft's press release on the new updated Live Search Engine.



[via marketingpilgrim]

Filed under: Microsoft, Search, web 2.0

Microsoft Tafiti: Silverlight is pretty but doesn't really help you search

tafiti
Microsoft's new Tafiti web site isn't exactly a new search engine. It's powered by Microsoft's search, so you'll get exactly the same results from Tafiti, MSN.com or Live.com. So what's the point of Tafiti? It's pretty.

When you first visit the site, you're prompted to install Silverlight if you haven't already. Then you're presented with a lot of empty space and a search box. When you enter your search term, you're subjected to a little flurry of activity. On the lower left side of the screen, a bunch of icons pop up. Click on them to see images representing your search results, RSS feeds that match your search terms, or a newspaper-like view.

You can also drag search results into slots on the right of the screen for saving, e-mailing, or blogging on Windows Live Spaces. If you're interested in all the bells and whistles, Tafiti is great. If you just want quick search results, you're probably better off with Live Search, Yahoo! or Google.

[via TechCrunch]

Filed under: Internet, E-mail, Productivity, Web services, Microsoft

Hotmail users get a little more storage

windows live hotmail users gets more storage spaceWe haven't heard from Microsoft's Hotmail in a little while, but now that we have, we are happy about them staying in the email game and making some performance adjustments.

With Google's Gmail and Yahoo's Mail throwing Gigabytes at users, it was time that Hotmail stepped up its game and gave users a little more storage. The change from 2GB of free email, just got boosted to 5GB, with paid users getting 10GB of storage. Could it be too late? Have users already switched to another service because of the lack of space?

Other changes the team has implemented are increasing the amount of time that messages stay in junk and deleted items, contact de-duplication, smaller header so users can see more of the email, vacation replies, accepting meeting requests, and the ability to turn off the today page. With all these new changes to Hotmail, it sounds like we have an online Outlook integration in the works.

Filed under: Design, Internet, Photo, Utilities, Blogging, Web services, Microsoft, web 2.0

Microsofts's Skydrive storage launches

Microsoft's Skydrive storage launchesIf you need a "little" more online storage for pictures, music, documents and videos, Microsoft's online Live storage solution has been re-released, and is available in beta with a few more updates.

Formally called Windows Live Folders, Windows Live Skydrive provides users with a fresh design and new features on the 500 MB online storage solution. There are new graphics, image thumbnails, the ability to drag and drop and embed files into social networks, blogs and websites.

Given that Skydrive is the new name of the service, we only hope that combined with the beta stamp are the only factors holding the storage capacity back for this new Live service.

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Social Software

Live questions and answers with Fluther

questions and answers with fluther
We sometimes like the comfort of getting an answer from a real individual rather than just searching for it in our favorite search engine, and Fluther understands that.

Ask a question to Fluther, and they will route it to the appropriate people. With their online service users simply ask a question, that question is sent out to get an answer from people that can help. Not only that, but if you have a specialty that you can help other users with, you can share your knowledge with others.

Sounds like a great idea, especially if questions can be discussed in real time with other members.

Filed under: Business, Internet, Utilities, Web services, Microsoft

Microsoft introduces Live Folders and Live Photo Gallery


Microsoft has been steadily rolling out new "Live" items since its introduction, there were two that got released late last night, with more planned to come out this summer.

Live Folders has been showing its face since around May, and are finally ready for some outside testing. The "storage on a cloud" Live Drive service, as it was coined earlier, will provide users with a free 500mb of online storage. (cough, cough...um... is that enough for the average user nowadays?) The storage was built for document storage only, so Microsoft isn't betting on the fact that people will be stuffing their spaces with multimedia materials like videos and music.

The Live Photo Gallery replaces the standard Vista Photo Gallery when installed. This allows users to control, manage, burn a picture or movie or create photo stitches, where photos are seamlessly stitched together to make a panoramic photo, relatively easy. It's an upgrade to the Windows Photo Gallery that comes standard with any Vista install. The main benefit to this application seems to be the ease of use for uploading images to Live Spaces, and videos to Soapbox.

More Windows Live services are said to roll out throughout the summer, as well as a Windows Live Suite that will include all of the Live services in one clean install.

Limited managed betas of the service will begin rolling out as of today with 5000 to 10000 testers, so look out for them if you're interested.

More coverage on this new release can be found here, here and here.

Take a look at some screenshots of the Live Folders interface:

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Photo, Web services, Yahoo!, Search

Flickr photos now in Yahoo search

flickr photos in yahooSo now that Yahoo owns Flickr why not integrate all these crazy, top notch, up to the second, newsworthy photos into Yahoo's image search? It only makes sense.

We wrote about this happening, and it's taken quite a while to do, but Yahoo has finally included Flickr photos in its queried search results. When images are uploaded to Flickr accounts worldwide and tagged, Yahoo gains access to these additions via a live feed from the Flickr service. When users then search in Yahoo, Flickr images will be marked with a Flickr account name. Searchers can then choose to view and search all photos by that particular user.

So as long as images are tagged correctly, they should start showing up in searches on Yahoo's Image Search.

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Web services, Adobe

Take a peak at Flash CS3 straight from Adobe's mouth

adobe cs3 liveThe newest release of Flash CS3 brought with it many extremely cool new features. This was the first ground up rebuild of all of Adobe's products after the big buyout of Macromedia.

At the recent FITC event in Toronto on Sunday, Adobe gave a demo of the new Flash CS3, and went over a few of the major new upgrades to the tool. These include the ability to import PSDs straight into Flash, and, this is the real kicker, the ability to dynamically generate XML code for use in AS3 through timeline based animations.

From the very few demos of all the new applications in CS3 I have seen so far, it could definitely be the time to upgrade, for productivities sake. It still hurts the wallet though.

Take a peek of the video of the presentation.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Web services, Microsoft, P2P

Microsoft integrating Instant Messaging on Xbox

msn live messengerFirst instant messaging distracted us from our day to day work, now it's set to distract our gaming life too.

Microsoft has announced that they will be integrating Windows Live Messenger on Xbox 360 consoles. This new addition allows users to chat straight from their televisions using Messenger.

How will users type though? Well, Microsoft has developed a virtual keyboard on the Xbox 360 where users scroll through letters, or users can always plug in a USB keyboard to consoles. Microsoft will also be launching a QWERTY text input device that will connect directly into the Xbox 360 controller that supports text and instant messaging as well.

Do DLS readers think Instant Messaging is a good addition to the Xbox? Or is it just another potentially distracting 'feature'?

[via TechCrunch]

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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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