Back in 2006, Microsoft decided to kill its MSN Music store. But MSN Music customers didn't have anything to worry about, because the songs they'd already legally purchased would be theirs to play forever. Sort of. In April of this year, Microsoft announced that it would be pulling the plug on its DRM servers for MSN Music. That meant that once you authorized your purchased music you'd be able to play it to your hearts content on your existing computer. But if you want to buy a new computer and transfer your music collection to the new PC, you're out of luck.
Needless to say, this was not a popular decision. And now it looks like Microsoft has reconsidered. Rather than shutting down the DRM servers in August, the company plans to keep them up and running... through at the end of 2011. Microsoft may decide to keep offering the service after 2011, but nobody's making any promises at this point.
We can understand why Microsoft would want to shut down the DRM servers. The company isn't making money by selling music through the MSN Music store anymore. So why waste the money on keeping the servers up and running? But that's the problem with DRM -- it doesn't go away. So if you're going to commit to selling music that comes with a set of heavy restrictions, you'd better be prepared to offer long term support.
Simkl is a web service that saves your instant message history to its servers so that you can access that searchable history from any computer with Internet access. You'll need a Simkl account and some money (1 month of archiving is $2.99 and one year is $24.99). You'll also have to change a setting in your IM client to use Simkl as a proxy (so that it can save your messages).
If the thought of a third party (besides the actual service provider) archiving your instant messages doesn't bother you, you can try out the service for a week for free. The history viewer is web-based, and you can do full-text searches on your IM history.
Simkl supports most of the popular IM clients including Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Pidgin, iChat, ICQ, Trillian, and Adium. Keep in mind that many of these IM clients like Pidgin and Trillian can log your chats individually, but if you use multiple computers with different IM clients, Simkl can unify your IM logging.
MSN Direct is Microsoft's platform for pushing weather, stock updates, sports, and other news to mobile devices via an FM radio frequency. The service was available for internet enabled GPS devices, watches, and other appliances. Yet for some reason Microsoft is just now getting around to releasing an MSN Direct client for cellphones and PDAs. The service will use available data connections like WiFi or 3G connections, rather than FM radio.
The Windows Mobile client is considered a "technology preview," which is a fancy word for beta. Right now it's available for Windows Mobile 5.0 or newer phones only. You can either download the client from your phone by pointing your mobile browser to phone.msndirect.com, or you can download the application from the same site using your desktop browser and install it to your phone using ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device center.
The OpenID project got a huge shot in the arm today as Yahoo! announced their support for the OpenID 2.0 single sign-on framework. As of today, there are a total of about 120 million OpenID accounts spread across services such as myopenid,WordPress.com, AOL (covered here before), and others. Yahoo! triples that number today by becoming an OpenID provider and adding approximately 250 new OpenID enabled accounts. Yahoo! users can expect to be able to use the services in private beta on January 30.
This means users will be able to log into more than 9,000 OpenID enabled sites with their Yahoo! username and password. For those of you who are unfamiliar with OpenID, it is a single sign on system for the web. Meaning if you look to join and log-in to a new site, you can use one username and password across all these disperate websites. For more info about OpenID, see Wikipedia or the OpenID homepage.
This can be counted as a huge win for the OpenID project. We believe in the idea of OpenID, but it won't be successful until the major players in the web market hop on board. We hope to see the other big companies such as Google and MSN hop on board and start serving up some OpenID goodness.
The year of 2007 is coming to an end, and so, it seems, is Microsoft's attempt to regain some ground in the hotly contested search market.
According to the data, Microsoft has two main troubles: getting people to use Live Search, and converting people to using Live Search as their main search portal. Translation: they ain't doing so good.
The latest statistics published by Nielsen Online give Live Search and MSN a share of just 12.0% of all the searches on the U.S. market in November, compared to 13.8% in October. Those numbers pale when put next to Google, who recorded less queries in November but still increased its market share to 57.7%.
So why the disparity? Simple: the name. You can easily tell someone in a casual conversation to "Google" it, but telling someone to "Live Search" it is just so not cool (okay, okay, it's not the name; we simply didn't want to elucidate on the myriad factors behind the philosophy and practice of web searches, and were looking to save some time).
We introduced you to Fring earlier this year, and now it has become even more useful. You've always been able to use Fring with Skype, Google Talk, Twitter, ICQ, and MSN Messenger; but now the application has the added ability to use AIM and Yahoo! Messenger.
Fring doesn't support voice calls on the new services, but does allow for IM conversations. You can, however, use Fring to make VoIP calls on Google Talk and Skype, along with Fring to Fring calls. With the new service additions, Fring is now a premier universal IM client for the mobile platform.
To use AIM or Yahoo!, simply load up Fring on your cellphone and go to settings -> services and add your AIM and/or Yahoo credentials to hop on those networks. No update to the Fring application is required.
In other Fring news, you can now connect with Free World Dialup (FWD) users using Fring.
Because Fring supports SIP, FWD can easily be used to connect via VoIP to your FWD friends. Details are a little sketchy on how to make mobile FWD calls, but details can be found on FWD's website. You will need to have a supported handset and your FWD# and password.
Note: you must have a Symbian or UIQ handset to utilize Yahoo/AIM.
We broke the news the beginning of this year that Yahoo! was busy preparing a complete rebuild of Messenger made exclusively for Windows Vista users. The ground up rebuild has taken quite a long time (11 months), but it's finally here.
Yahoo! Messenger for Vista is officially available as a preview download starting today. There are some important features that are missing in this build, but the significant additions might make up for the lack of features. The changes in Yahoo! Messenger include a complete change of layout, skin chooser, filter-as-you-type for easy searching, spell checker and a convenient tabbed conversation window that controls your desktop clutter. The rebuild also incorporates sidebar graphics that have the ability to show favorite contacts separated from conversation windows. Graphical elements in the new IM take Microsoft's graphic subsystem into play for vector based interfaces and enhanced emoticons. IM's can now be conveniently sent to both Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger contacts, complete with up to 2GB worth of files.
There are a few features that have been left out of this build that are scheduled for a later date. They are big ones that people do expect to have, be it a beta build or any release and include voice, webcam, chat rooms, text messaging to mobile devices, photo sharing and conferencing. To grab a copy of the new Yahoo! Messenger for Vista preview release, visit http://messenger.yahoo.com/windowsvista.php We will have more on this application as we put it through the DLS wringer.
Check out some screenshots of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista Preview in the gallery.
Imo.Im is a web based instant messaging service, from former Google employees, that lets you IM your friends from various IM clients, such as AIM, Google Talk, MSN, and Yahoo Messenger. This aggregator service is similar to Meebo and e-buddy.
Now that's all well and good, but they just added video chat to really get the party going. Now you can video chat with your friends using a web cam with just one click via an invite button. You can also do a three way chat with the first two chatters each opening a separate window with the third party.
Another feature sure to be the ultimate party starter, is Imo's group chat, which lets you chat across multiple IM clients, although this feature is still under development.
Imo.Im was launched in April and its creators are fomer employees of Google. It has about 70,000 users.
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?
Get ready for a whole new Facebook. Instant Messaging is getting set to find a home in the ever expanding, bulging at the seams social network.
Just when you thought that all that news about Facebook's valuation, the developer grants, and the possible Microsoft investment was enough to raise the roof on their worth, we hear news that the site is launching an IM client.. A new Facebook IM is set to go into Beta this Friday and will take on the likes of MSN, AIM, Google Talk, and Yahoo. We would imagine that this could not be used as a standalone application, and would work inline with Facebook profiles. Sam Sethi has received an early look at the beta, and enjoys the fact that there is no download or install necessary. But will it replace your standard IM?
With Yahoo! and MSN being somewhat locked down in their protocols, we are sure that things will change as the Facebook IM becomes the new in "instant messaging application". But for now, it looks like only chatting between Facebook friends is possible.
UPDATE: The Facebook IM application FriendVox, is rumored to be in development by a third party called Techlightenment, who specialize in Facebook application development.
The team in Redmond Washington has just announced that they will be acquiring Chicago based Parlano, developers of a cross functional group communication technology, that goes beyond your typical IM and email toolsets.
Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but Microsoft is planning to integrate Parlano's technology in order to give its office programs a broader vision. For example, users would be able to see who is available only by IM as oppose to Phone or video chat. Then they would be able to transition seamlessly from email to an IM to a video chat.
This move by Microsoft marks a milestone in its Office Communications server due out late next year. An application that lets users find and communicate with the right person, immediately, through the applications that they use most.
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.
Twittering just got easier yet again. Instead of installing any additional applications, or visiting Twitter.com, users of MSN's Live Messenger can Twitter with ease.
TwitterMSN is a new service brought to you by the creators of TwitterMail. It is just another easier way to post quick updates to contacts via the Twitter API. TwitterMSN works by adding msn@twittermsn.com to your contact list. It's that easy. This service also uses good old ICQ (if you can remember your ID number) to post updates.
For additional Twitter tools DLS has reviewed, take a peek here.
On Friday, we wrote about the iPhoneChat application that allowed you to do AOL Instant Messaging from the iPhone. Today, however, we can go one better: AIM, Jabber (GTalk), MSN, Yahoo! and even ICQ for your iPhone.
Meebo offers an IM-aggregation service via the web, however what's great about this apparently new service is that you don't need to be registered with Meebo to be able to sign in. You simply visit the site, enter your sign-in details, and Meebo will log you in to the relevant service. Whilst the service isn't specifically for the iPhone, it works just fine (and once you've opened a chat window, you can simply take advantage of the zooming and enlarge the chat window) thanks to the iPhone's Safari browser.
Meebo have been around quite a while (we featured them way back in 2005), and with emoticons, messages shown in the browser title bar - as you can see in the screenshot above - and multiple services supported, this looks to be the best way to IM with your data plan until such a time that Apple puts in place an application of their own.
The arms race between Microsoft and Google continues. Microsoft has just expanded its book search service to bring it more in line with Google Book Search by adding a limited number of copyrighted works, with permission from major publishers. Up until now, most of the titles indexed had been in the public domain.
The update to MSN Live Search Books comes while Google is still battling several lawsuits against copyright holders for indexing works without permission. That's something for which Microsoft has criticized Google.
MSN Live Search Books shows small selections from copyrighted books and provides links to sites where you can buy the title.
Back in 2006, Microsoft decided to kill its MSN Music store. But MSN Music customers didn't have anything to worry about, because the songs they'd already legally purchased would be theirs to play forever. Sort of. In April of this year, Microsoft announced that it would be pulling the plug on its DRM servers for MSN Music. That meant that once you authorized your purchased music you'd be able to play it to your hearts content on your existing computer. But if you want to buy a new computer and transfer your music collection to the new PC, you're out of luck. 
The OpenID project got a huge shot in the arm today as 
We 
