I”ll be disconnected for awhile

As you’ve noticed, I haven’t blogged in awhile. I’m in the transition of moving to a new house, so it’s been kind hard. Sadly, internet is not ready yet.

 

It will be a long while until I can blog again. Sad to say. I’ve been missing out the joys of the internet. The blogs, the news, some of the sites, everything. Sigh. It will probably be another week. I’ll write an article about internet addiction, and how people like me suffer.

 

So please don’t think I’m dead or anything. I’ll be back. Sorry for not warning you guys earlier. I’m dying here.

Microsoft buying CNET Networks for $90 Million – how would it work?

NOTE: This is not a true story. Just a possible think tank of what an acquisition would be like.

I was wondering, what if Microsoft bought CNET Networks for like $90 Million? CNET Networks is like a media company focused on the web. They own CNET, ZDNET, MP3.com, TV.com, and many other web properties. Especially in famous domain names.

They would make a great source of content for MSN‘s content networks. A partnership between content sites are usually so-so.Exactly why Microsoft would really want to acquire, rather than partner with CNET Networks.   

Many of CNET’s site could easily be integrated into MSN’s other content sites, with a name change.

Here are some examples:

• CNET (tech site) – becomes MSN Tech & Gadgets
• MP3.com (music site) – becomes MSN Music
• TV.com (tv site) – becomes MSN TV
• GameSpot & GameFAQ (gaming site) – becomes MSN Games
• FilmSpot (movie site) – MSN Movies
• BNET (business management site) –MSN Money

Then there are sites that might make a so-so list. Like UrbanBaby, Chow Hound, and Chow could like go into MSN Lifestyle or City Guides. MySimon would go into MSN Shopping (if Microsoft doesn’t kill MSN Shopping first)

Then there are sites that wouldn’t at all fit into MSN or Windows Live, or they just suck.

ZDNet and TechRepublic are sites for IT-like people. Of where "technology meets business". Microsoft owning a tech forum wouldn’t be a good indicator at all for that site. It would die from users not wanting Microsoft owning a tech forum site. This is an example of how it doesn’t fit in.

Sites that suck would be Consumating and Webshots. There’s already way too many social network sites, so Consumerating is already dead. Webshots is a photo-sharing site, but they have to dream on to beat Flickr.

One of the main things is that CNET really does have some good content sites. Like the top 6 that could easily be integrated into MSN, have great content. If MSN had the same type of content as them, then it would really have something.

CNET.com has a lot of great tech info. and stuff. I could see Microsoft doing a redesign, and integrating that into their MSN Tech site. Where MSN Tech will finally be all about tech and gadgets and stuff. With proper specs, reviews, pictures, and videos. All with a nice look.

MP3.com is all about the music. They give an offering of free music, and have had a couple of exclusive interviews. They also offer reviews of music players, forums, categories of music, and tons of other music offerings. MSN Music could use some of their content, specifically music videos and interviews.

TV.com is all about TV. They have tons of TV series listed on there. From reviews, videos, episode guides, ratings, and tons of stuff. It’s like the ultimate place to get TV info. MSN TV also offer a very broad list of TV series, but does not give full episode reviews, user reviews, ratings or anything where users can put input on TV episodes. TV.com is a top dog, and it would help MSN TV a whole lot on the content side.

GameSpot.com is all about game reviews. They offer reviews for all game consoles, portable gaming machines, and even the PC. MSN Games currently offers a selection of casual games – no reviews, video gaming or anything. Just casual games. MSN Games could start offering the same kind of content as GameSpot.com for a real MSN Games.

GameFAQ‘s is kinda similar to GameSpot, but they’re more into help getting through the game. Like cheat codes, and walkthroughs. It’s not as good as GameBoomers, but it does the job. This should also be bundled along with GameSpot into MSN Games.

FilmSpot is a movie site. It’s not really that good of a site. It pretty much offers as much as MSN Movies, only with an awful look. Not real much from this site. IMDb is a much better site.

BNET is about business management stuff. It seems to offer real quality articles about business topics. It would go great in MSN Money.

As for the other sites, most of them would/should be independent. Especially ZDNet and TechRepublic.

Microsoft would also have to ensure that they won’t throw bias or any super controll on the integration and their own sites. Like if I see bad reviews of the iPod, and Zune ads plastered all over a site, that would be disappointing. Microsoft has to ensure that they won’t reach their arms into the site, and try to put pro-Microsoft stuff onto the place. Or else, nobody, even me, would want to go near Microsoft for ruining great sites and putting FUD into them. Anti-Apple and Anti-Linux, or Anti-Google would really kill Microsoft if it hits those sites.

Microsoft can’t do any bias like that on their site.

They also have to make others understand, and ensure that Microsoft will not be running the content in their favor.

Content is a very tricky thing. Sometimes it may sound bias, or sometimes it may not. If Microsoft fails to do it right, they’ll look like fools. If they can prove that they are not going to be FUD throwers, then they’ll be ok.

Buying CNET Networks, and integrating their content into MSN sections would be a good deal – if done correctly.

I love Windows Live Toolbar!

Now I know that I’m usually critiquing Microsoft products/services, but today, I’ll tell you what I like about one of their stuff.

Windows Live Toolbar works great for me. I use it for search, a quick button access to another site, and other little things.

Now I know not everybody is a fan of Live Search. Maybe other Windows Live stuff, but not search. Well that’s your opinion. I just like Live Search for the clean looks, speed, Instant Answers, and other little things. Relevancy seems just as great as Google’s. The toolbar does search real great. It’s easy to access right off the browser.

The search toolbar also does, (with a little arrow on the side to extend these options) news, images, local, feeds, inline site search, movie, music, yellow pages, tons of stuff. You can even download buttons from Windows Live Gallery to extend more search options. You can search on these buttons if you want to take a look at these sites. I have a Flickr, Xbox, MSNBC, and Live Gallery search extenders. They are highlighted in green if you enter text in the search box, so you can search by them.

The search box also has a drop-down menu that lists some of the most common searches associated to the text you’re typing. It’s pulls up the most common searches instantly as you enter text. It also saves your last searches at the bottom, so they’re easy to access too. You can erase/clear them if you want.

I have other neat buttons too. I have a Gizmodo and Engadget button, that checks the latest news hourly, and displays them with a drop down arrow list. For my tech news. You can also press the button too (like all the other buttons) and get instant access directly to the site. There’s also an MSN button, which I just check for some interesting content sometimes.

I also have a pop-up blocker with the toolbar. There’s already one built-in into IE7, but it really makes this annoying sound when there’s one. I like how the Windows Live Pop-Up blocker, show up at the top of the page, and notifies you if there’s one. And if you click on it, there’s an option to allow it this one time, allow them for this site, or reset the pop-up counter. Pretty useful compared to annoying clicking sounds from the one in IE7. It works great for the most part. I love it. The one in IE7 should work the same way, instead of the way it does now. It also displayes a counter, telling how many pop-ups have tried to get in.

There’s a Windows Live Hotmail button. Pressing the button takes you directly there. There’s a counter in parenthesis telling you how many new e-mails are in your inbox. Like (5) means 5 new e-mails.

The Spaces buttong is useless. I hate how it opens up a whole other browser, then change the page I’m on.

My last two buttons are Toolbar Options, and Toolbar Help.

Live Toolbar also does browser tabs in IE6. If you have IE6 and are looking for tabs, Live Toolbar does a pretty god job with it. But if you can’t even get IE7, then you have better luck with full functionality in Firefox.

There’s also one other neat thing about Live Toolbar – Text Highlight options.

When you highlight anything, there are two little buttons that come up right next to it. From these 2 buttons, you can pretty much search or do anything. Like if you highlight an address – you can use one of the button options to see it in a Windows Live Maps. And the maps appear in a small box onscreen! No linking to another page or anything, it just appears. Of highligh a phone number, and it comes with an option to give that number a call on your computer. Or highlight a pieces of text and search it on Live Search, or Yellow Pages. Little things like that. Really neat and useful.

For the most part, I love Windows Live Toolbar. It’s so helpful and great to use. There a few things I wish though:

1. Support for Firefox (or other browsers) – It would be wonderful if everybody had a chance to use it. So make one support Firefox, and maybe even Opera, and Safari. It only does IE6 and IE7 right now. Be more open, and deliver it to all browsers.
2. More official Microsoft buttons – It’s great the Live Toolbar is open for many developers to customize and make and stuff, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. Developers are always trying to make great stuff, and they sometimes do. But how about some official buttons from Microsoft? Instead of depending on other developers to do so? Because sometimes, they’re are really crappy buttons made by developers. And they really stink. It also doesn’t help that Microsoft doesn’t make offical great working ones either. So how about making better/nicer buttons for users?

Well that’s about it really. Make one availiable for FireFox and other users, and make more better offical buttons for users. That’s really what I’m hoping for. If Microsoft could do that, that would be wonderful. If you use IE6 or IE7, I really suggest you give Live Toolbar a try.

Windows Live Hotmail – Wishlist

 I decided to make a Live Hotmail Wishlist.

I kind of like Live Hotmail in it’s own way. I think the UI is kind of neat. Not really hard to use at all. Compared to ugly MSN Hotmail, and cluttered up Yahoo! Mail. It doesn’t really slow me down, because I use high-speed cable internet. Although I guess if you are a user of DSL or even dial-up, then I guess it might be slow on your end. I also don’t get why people even care about extra GB’s. According to Live Hotmail, I only use up 1% of my 2GB. If you really need any more than that, you’re either really busy with contacts, or you have spam. No problems for me.

For me, it works great as a web e-mail thing. It does it job real great, and I’ve had like no problems with it. Well except for a few things that I haven’t liked.

So here’s my simple list of things that I hope they can take care of in Live Hotmail:

1. Speed it up for many users – Although speed really doesn’t affect me considering I have a high-speed cable connection, I hear that for other users (who I guess have DSL or even dial-up) Live Hotmail takes too long. The only thing it really takes long for me, is when I first enter, and it loads up my inbox. Like around 6-10 seconds for the inbox to load up the first time I access it. Although it only takes 1 second if I visit again. I don’t really mind (I’m not a speed freak, 6 sec. won’t dilute my life time), but I guess for some people, it should be faster. It does kind of look redundant when it says "Taking too long? – Try the Classic version." – NOT a good way to show off Live Hotmail. Maybe the should fix their AJAX thing to optimize it for speed like Gmail does.
2. Windows Live Calendar (make it come!) – That’s one thing I was really not happy about. Live Hotmail left beta, and became official – without being feature complete (Microsoft!). Instead, for me, it first redirects me to a "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage". And pressing the back button, brings me to the old MSN Calendar interface. Sigh. Guys, couldn’t you just wait until Live Calendar came? Or pushed Live Calendar first? To tell you the truth, I don’t use calendars or any type of fixed schedule at all, but it wouldn’t hurt if Live Calendar was available. I’m really hoping that Live Calendar offers what Google Calendar, iCal, Windows Calendar, and even Outlook‘s calendar, in terms of function/design, and improve it even more somehow. Make it work with the web, and have some good way of connecting the same data to my desktop either through Windows Mail or it’s own offering. C’mon, we really need a full functioning calendar.
3. Offering @live.com accounts – I think @hotmail.com offers too many small inconveniences.  1. it’s pretty long compared to @yahoo.com, or @gmail.com, or even @msn.com. So it’s takes extra time to type/write it, and saying it all outloud. And it would be great to have another account system, to get some cool domains. Like if somebody already took michael@hotmail.com, maybe a michael@live.com is available once it’s released. You know, a 2nd account to fall back on. And it’s shorter too. So how about offering it, and giving users something to cheer about?
4. Giving POP3 to free users as well – It pretty much says itself. I know that it’s offered for paid users, but being nice to your free users counts too, right? It is available for free if you have Microsoft Outlook or use Windows Live Mail, but I’m not sure that really counts.
5. Full support for Safari browser – Now I am far from ever using Safari. It ranks at the bottom of my list of browsers. Heck, even OS X users preferred Firefox over Safari. I can’t blame them. But I saw in the Wikipedia article that it’s not really usable in Safari. Windows Live/MSN really needs to stay committed to being cross platform, or it won’t be leading happy users at all.
6. Better support for Hotmail Plus subscribers – I’ve heard that Hotmail Plus doesn’t really give you a whole lot more than the free version so it should work on that. I don’t know if it’s to add some extra features, more storage, or even a cheap price. Just something to make sure that they’re really benefiting.
7. Integration of a Web Messenger – I’m not talking about this sad old MSN WebMessenger thing. I’m talking about an integration of something with the look and feel of Live Messenger, in a internet browser window. Sometime people are on the go, and can’t take their personal computers with them. And sometimes, a computer they borrow may not have Live Messenger installed, and it’s a hassle to find a way to IM. Meebo is great, but it doesn’t offer the full features as the regular Windows Live Messenger. So here’s to hoping that the Hotmail team, and the Live Messenger team can work on putting together a Live Web Messenger onto Live Hotmail instead. Much more convenient and better for users.
8. Changing the name (minor wish) – Not a really important thing needed, but I think they should change the whole Hotmail name thing. Hotmail sounds so 90’s. They got the name from some geek-speak, where Hotmail’s letters represents HTML when spelled: HoTMaiL. Yeah, I know, really geeky. But Hotmail still sounds old, and I think it should be changed. I was hoping for Windows Live Mail. I already know that they have some desktop application that does mail, but I don’t see why their web-based e-mail should be call Windows Live Mail. Maybe the desktop one could be renamed Windows Live Mail Desktop (WLMD – yikes!), or Windows Desktop Mail. I don’t know, something? Anyways, I still think that changing the name of the web-based e-mail to Windows Live Mail seems more important, and is a good idea to me. Just to keep up with the times.

Well that’s about it. That’s the stuff from the top of my head. So if the Live Hotmail team can accomplish this, I’d really appreciate it. I hope they consider these wishes.

I got the scoop of some of the latest updates from LiveSide.  

Sorry for the lame posts

Hey guys. Sorry for the lame posts I’ve been putting up lately. I guess they do sound kind of boring.

It’s not easy blogging. I don’t always know what to blog about. There’s too many things.

Plus putting together a new blog post is kind of hard for me. I have to go through these steps:

1. Come up with something to write about
2. Use Live Writer and start typing up what comes off your mind
3. Continually checking up sites to hyperlink, and getting the info. right
4. Possibly finding a good picture to add to the post
5. Spell Check
6. Make it look nice and presentable
7. Done

7 steps, but for me, they’re hard. I usually take up about 1/2 an hour to write one post. I try to post every 2 days if I can.

I like to put make-believe posts about a pretend Microsoft product/service that I’ve always wanted or expected, but it’s really hard to put it in writing. And then drawing up sketches is kind of lousy. I just do it to share some ideas, and maybe Microsoft might consider them and make it a reality. Silly, but if you don’t try, you can’t succeed.

I’m also a wishlist kind of guy. In these posts, I’ll directly point out what’s needed from Microsoft.

Then there’s other posts, like ones where I give a thought or comment about something coming up, and other stuff like that.

I don’t ever have any true insider secrets. Most of my blog posts comes from the top of my head, or from news that I’ve heard. Although I do have a few Microsoft employee contacts.

Plus the fact that I’m balancing my daily life, versus my web life, it’s kinda hard taking the time to write up posts.

So I hope you forgive me. But if readers would please put input, like comments, than I would have a better idea of how to go.

IE7 or Firefox 2.0?

                                      VS.             

It’s comes to a matter of what’s more secure, useful, less bothersome, and just overall better. There’s also Opera and Safari, but the big dogs right now are IE7 and FF. (NOTE: This is not a technical review – it’s opinion-based).

Personally, I just use IE7. I’ve really had no problems with it. It’s crashed a few times before, like only 3. The only other thing remotely annoying is the ActiveX prompt. That’s it. I appreciate what it does, and it does it well. It’s not really complicated or anything.

Firefox is cool too. It does offer more extensions (because it’s open source) and freely allows developers to put as many as they want. So that’s cool. Plus it was like the first browser to actually do some good compared to old IE6. But I hate how it’s a real resource hog, and it’s really slow compared to IE7.

Plus I’ve read articles that claim Firefox really isn’t that more advance in security. It’s just the low adoption rate. Although since it is rising slightly, we are seeing more frequent attacks coming. So win some, lose some.

The only add-ons I put on IE7 are the Windows Live Toolbar and IE7 Pro.

I love the Windows Live Toolbar, because I’m kind of a fan of Live Search and I like how you can add buttons made by developers. I use Wikipedia as my browser search box.

IE7 Pro is also awesome. Many of the pro users use it. It includes some handy features not available in IE7. My favorite and most used is really the inline spell check. It gives a red underline to any misspelled text I put in. Real useful. It also contains a lot of other goodies, which you can view on their site. Free and safe to use.

So my IE7 isn’t really weighed by anything. So it just works and I appreciate it.

So here’s the low-down:

Firefox is great if you can’t get IE7. That’s like on Windows XP SP1, Windows ME, 98, Linux, OS X, lots of systems. Pretty much does anything that a browser should do. Many people appreciate how the stability is compared to other browsers, and the many extensions it offers. Note, it is not any more secure than IE7 based on features.

If you’ve got Vista and SP2, IE7 is a great offer. It works for the most part, and it isn’t as bad as people may want you to believe. I think most criticism of IE7 comes from past users who never appreciated IE6 compared to Firefox, or they’re just simply Microsoft haters, and never even tried IE7. Whatever. It’s just a dumb browser. I could care less.

So that’s about it. That’s my opinion on the browser debate. Safari just sucks, hands down. Opera is noted for it’s speediness and reliability compared to Firefox.

I’m also putting up a simple IE8 wishlist. Here’s what I want:

1. More support for web standards – I’ve heard lots of developers complaining about CSS and that kind of stuff. How it’s harder to work for in IE than it should be. And a bunch of other stuff. Silly really. I mean is it really that hard to support all these web standards? Stop being proprietary Microsoft. Developers want an easy way to do stuff, and making it difficult doesn’t make them happy.

2. Cross platform – Works on any OS. Whether it’s Windows, OS X, or Linux. People want to be free, and I guess as long as their still using your software, you should be happy. No reduced functionality either. We want the real thing.

3. Fix up the UI – IE7’s UI is a mixed bag. It’s ok, but they could have done better. One thing I don’t like, is the zoom level button. I would really love a magnification slider bar, like in Office 07′, instead of the quirky selection option provided.

4. More built-in stuff – How about adding a built-in pop-up blocker? Live Toolbar offers it, yet IE7 doesn’t? I mean a pop-up blocker seems important to me. And how about already supporting the latest version of Flash, or Java or whatever it is. Inline spell check? Maybe an adBlocker (which of course clashes with Microsoft’s adCenter)

5. Better security – IE7 already has some better security within itself (definitely compared to IE6), but it could still work on it. Like installing updates faster? Getting those patches quicker? Make the browser invincible? Just kidding. I don’t know how, but just make it more secure than what it is. Without slowing users down.

6. Pass the Acid2 test – If IE8 passes that, then I’m guessing most people won’t hold a grudge. Of course, it’s said that FF 3.0 is already compliant.

Do all 6 and people will trust you again. Firefox is winning right now with popularity, so if IE doesn’t shape up in the next version, or takes too long, than IE is a lost cause. Microsoft might as well start digging a grave for IE.

Like I said, I could care less about internet browser wars, but it wouldn’t hurt for Microsoft to actually ‘try’ instead of depending on their current marketshare to do it for them.

Encarta Reader – My (pretend) review

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NOTE: This is not a real review of a Microsoft product/service. It’s is just a pretend joke review to express my feelings of what a Microsoft product/service should be. So please, do not regard this as a real review or product. Thank you.

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For those of you who aren’t into reading, Encarta Reader is the latest eBook reader to hit the streets. Microsoft Reader died (no wonder) due to the fact that there was no reason to bother installing it, or anything good to read. So of course, it died.

But then Microsoft got back on its balls, and released a new eBook reader. A full scaled one. Not some lame version with absolutely no way to get content. Inspired from the latest awesome version of Encarta, Encarta Reader is like the best eBook/audiobook reader there is. It’s to further extend the Encarta (education) platform Microsoft had launched recently. To make Encarta the way of spreading knowledge, education, and whatnot.

Encarta Reader is a great mix of features and content. It’s where quality and design go hand-in-hand (yay! Microsoft finally did it right again!). It looks pretty much like a mix between WMP11 controls, and Office 2007 Ribbon UI. Kind of cool, kind of weird, depends on how it is to you, when you use it.

There’s like so many things on Encarta Reader. There’s book tools like annotate, highlight, bookmark, etc. You can even change the look of a book, to the one that you find pleasing, similar to styles in Office 2007.

The book controls at the bottom of the app. (similar to that as of WMP 11) work as you might guess them. The ‘play/pause’ is available if there’s an audiobook (which these days, most ebooks are). The ‘previous’ and ‘next’ buttons (on the side of the big round play/pause button) flip the pages. ‘Stop’, starts back at the start. ‘Shuffle’ shuffles up all the books in your library, as to what you will see next. ‘Repeat’ will repeat the book once it’s done (although I don’t know why anyone would want to reread it again so fast). Sound, does the audio sounds of the book of course.

There’s also a zoom slider, that does dynamic scrolling to increase/decrease magnification. And you probably already know what else is at the bottom.

The top of the app. has the Office 07′ Ribbon/fluent UI. Kind of looks neat, but weird in an ebook program. The tabs include: "Home", "Library", "Book Layout", "Marketplace", "eBook Creator", and "View".

A quick rundown of each tab:

• Home – All your basic tools when reading an eBook. Spread out right on this tab for ease and convenience.
• Library – Displays your library of eBooks/audiobooks. 6 Layout views including List, Album + List, Cover Flow, Carousel, Tile, and Shuffle Space
• Book Layout – Displays quik buttons to access parts of the book. Like front cover, publication page, 1st page, table of contents, etc.
• Marketplace – The store the sells all the eBooks. So far, only Microsoft does it (but real well), and it’s just called "eBook Marketplace". It’s the largest online eBook store in the world with almost 3.5 million books. All of them real good.
• eBook Creator – a simplified eBook making app for yourself. You can make your own eBooks and send them to your friends and family. It does a pretty sweet job as far as styling and tools go. It’s just up to you to make the content. Microsoft is considering making a different marketplace for independents like that.
• View – Different ways to view the eBook and whatnot.

So that’s the tabs. Across from the tabs is the forward and back buttons, for either navigating through the marketplace, an eBook, or pretty much anything that appears on the screen. There’s the layout button (all 6). There’s a search box that does your library, inline search, or the marketplace. And a help button.

The most major thing about it is the way eBooks/audiobooks have been done on ER. It’s done like no other.

We’re not talking about the old eBooks. The ones where selection was limited, no color, sometimes copied (badly) from copiers, and it pretty much gave you a reason to use regular physical books.

Nope. These are way better. Microsoft worked with publishers to get it done right. So now what do we have? Practically every book ever made (or wanted), books in full color, books that come with more extras than the ones from a bookstore, and practically every book has an audio option. An audio option that has realistic sounding characters and narrators, and sound effects and all. It’s just like being there and hearing everything. They also come at a cheaper price, since there’s no shipping and manufacturing involved. It’s pretty much a dream world for eBooks/audiobooks.  

Here’s the real reason why Encarta Reader is a major success story:

• The only true eBook reader/store app. there is – I guess other companies have tried and failed, but Microsoft had the resources and people to get it in. Thanks to them, we have a true quality eBook reader that has many functions, and a online store that sells pretty much every book that you could want. More than the iTunes store even.
• The way eBooks are done (very well) – Now eBooks have come to the state where they really can challenge the ease and convenience of regular physical books. Microsoft made a deal with many publishers to make true quality eBooks. Practically every book you want, can be found all on Marketplace. Like every one. The eBooks are clean and crisp – not copied off some copy machine. There’s also a wider offering of audiobooks, along with regular text. Now these two can actually combine. Audiobooks are essentially eBooks + audio. Practically every eBook comes with an audio option, and Microsoft made sure that there were realistic speaking actors to do the job real well. More offerings like tidbits attached to each book, and even ‘Author Page Info.’ where you can view the extension of each page, and maybe the author may have left a note or even paragraphs about what they wrote on each page. Like their own description/reasoning as to why it’s there. You can even change the fonts on them! And use tools like bookmarking, highlighting, notes, like you can with real books. Man is it so cool.
• Lower cost – Since regular physical books have to be manufactured and shipped, that adds as part of the cost of your books. Since eBooks don’t have to be manufactured physically, and have to be shipped across the country, they cost less. Like a regular paperback book that cost $5.99, would be around $2.50 on Marketplace. Much better if you ask me.
• Support for office file types – So you can also read documents in Encarta Reader. Support goes all out for .doc, .ods, .odp, .odt, PDF, and .xls
• No DRM! – Yeah, no DRM at all. Pretty surprising since before, publishers never put much eBooks up in concern that there work would be pirated, and given for free to anyone. Although of course, since there’s no DRM, Microsoft put some other piracy preventions in.
• The Reader is free – Yep, the reader is free. No cost at all. You have to at least have Windows (sorry OS X) to get it. A legal one of course.
• Books work in WMP and devices – The books can also be viewable in the latest version of WMP, and can sync to any portable media player. You can view, or listen, or both on any PMP, since there’s no DRM.
• Subscription feature – Many people just read a book once, and that’s it. So if you’ve bought a lot books, read them once, and they just sit there all day, what a waste. With the subscription feature on Marketplace, you can read as many or any books as you want and not have to worry about paying and keeping them forever. This is really a true convenience to people who don’t read often, or only want to read new things.

There’s also been some criticism, like you can’t print, and copy & pasting text is limited. Since no publishers wants their author’s work printed off on to a bunch of paper, and copied, and given to free to anyone, there’s no printing feature. At least not for the ones bought from Marketplace. You can however print your own eBooks. That’s the only option to do so.

There’s also the issue of copy & pasting text. Anybody could just copy & paste the text of all the pages in the books, and print them right out. Well not in Encarta Reader. There’s a limit to how much you can copy and paste, like if you need it for a quote or something. But not more than a paragraph’s worth.

Regardless of that, since I don’t do pirating or lame enough to spend time on getting free versions out, it’s great. Practically anyone who’s interested in reading books have tried it, and liked it. It’s a true contender against regular physical books.

So Microsoft really made a success with this one. I recommend that you get it. Just to give it a try.

 Here are some sketches of it in pre-beta (no color/hard to see – sorry):

                   

                       

 Here’s also some pics of the layout views (including the popular carousel view):

      

 

Windows Live Home – Seems interesting (Oh, and some official Halo 3 site)

I read the story from LiveSide of Windows Live Home coming. Basically, Windows Live Home is a one-stop site where it shows you all things revolving around ‘your’ Windows Live stuff.                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                          

 

I think it’s pretty cool. At least it seems that the Windows Live team is doing something. I don’t really have much to say, since it’s like a beta, and it’s just a site. Except that they oughta fix the bevel on the services list. Like the Hotmail, Spaces, and More Services section. The color white and bevel just don’t go together. It looks gaudy the way they did it. That’s the only thing that’s bad. I don’t know what much else to say. You can see your Windows Live Home here.

Oh, and btw, I saw a Halo 3 site from MSN. I’m not a big fan of video games, or anything (or even the Halo craze), but I thought you might be interested if you didn’t know. I don’t think it’s anything special. Just some countdown clock, Xbox 360 and Zune advertising, and whatnot. Just thought you might be interested.

                                                                    

How should each MSN content site improve itself?

Yesterday, I put a really long post about my review/analysis of each MSN content site. So today, I’m going to focus on how each MSN content side could be better. It’s probably going to be another long one, but for the most part, they’ll be in alphabetical order. So skip what you want.

Here’s a basic guideline on what all MSN content site should do:

1. Provide quality content – Give me a reason why I should visit. If there’s no quality content, why would I bother going there? People want sites of quality, rinky-dinky articles reposted from another site won’t do.

2. Poll feature – Every content site should offer a voting poll related to their site. Like Health could have, "Which the best big brand pharmacy?" Or Travel could have, "What continent are you least interested in visiting?". And maybe there can be a message board tagged along with each daily poll. Provide some interactivity by offering a poll.

3. Provide a nicely designed site – These days, looks are important as quality. If a site ‘looks’ bad, then people are pretty much already going to turn away. There’s other sites they could hit. If it’s so cluttered, and hard to differentiate, I’m not going to be happy. Graphical icons could help in this case, or better reorganization. Just provide a nice aesthetic design site, and you’ll always have people coming back. Like for instance with MSN Entertainment.

4. User interactivity – Give people some way to interact with the content on the site. It may be content put by MSN, but people should still have a chance to do whatever they can with it. Like placing comments, right under the article. Instead of providing a link to a separate message board. If you worry that it might make the page load longer, or people don’t come in there for that, then by default, give an option like "See all comments (26)" so that you press it, the page extends, and you see 26 comments, if you want to. Provide a handy toolbox of tools to do something with the article. Like e-mail, IM, 5 star rate, tools like that in one centralized area. Give users the option to give their reviews/ratings of a place or gadget. Stuff like that makes people want to come.

So here’s my analysis of how each MSN content site could be done better:

A-List: (shows popular searches, and popular things) Kill it. Discard it. There’s no real point to this site. You’d have to be real bored to bother with this one. Instead, Microsoft should at least consider making a real search statistic site like Google Trends. You know, a comparison of the top/bottom searches and all that showing statistics of each search in countries and whatnot. Come on, that’s exactly why Google is still the top search engine, they just offer more search tools. A-List is dumb. Make a search statistic site for Live Search, and offer it is a Windows Live offering.

Air Tickets/Travel: (travel articles/air tickets) – #1 thing – get rid of all the Expedia flight deals. They’re like everywhere on the pages. It’s ok to keep the large Expedia deal maker module/box in the top right hand corner, but all the other little modules offering deals is too annoying and overdone. There needs to be travel videos. Why kind of travel site doesn’t offer travel videos? And please, not a link to the MSN video site. I want to see the player right on the site. It’s so annoying to be redirected to another site just to see a video. And how about a separate section of the site to plot my own travels? And how about user reviews? Depending on one article for advice, won’t help. I would love for the site to offer users a real chance to put their reviews of cities, or countries, or any destinations on the site. The full tools like 5 star rating, no character limits, and all that. I like MSN Travel, but the site really needs to improve to keep up with the times.

Autos: (site about cars) – How about more in-depth reviews and info.? I really hate seeing the "Not Available" and "Not rated" spaces. What kind of auto site doesn’t have complete info. on that? Autos should work on providing a quality site for auto industry info. With gaps in reviews, photos, specs, and even videos, how can people depend on this site for their auto news? How about teaming up with Motor Trends to provide real quality info. on autos? I’ve glanced through their magazine one time, and they really know how to pull design and quality content together real well. Especially with their neat comparison charts. Man are they cool. So MSN Autos should try getting a deal with Motor Trends to get some (or all) the goodies on MSN Autos. Because if MSN Autos is not going to focus at all on being a quality Auto site, then why bother?

Career & Jobs: (Job-finding site and tips) – There’s not much to say about this one. I think Careerbuilder already does a good job on giving you info. for finding and getting a job. Just put a more curved and styled modules, and remove the "More from MSN" links at the bottom of the site. If I wanted "More from MSN", I wouldn’t be there. Just add some nice style, and you’ve already got it done.

City Guides: (Site about places to go in your city) – This is pretty disappointing. The old MSN City Guides did better. Where is a place where I can find reviews on any restaurant, library, bar, school, store, in my city? Nowhere. There’s an already set list of restaurants and events from MSN. With little reviews from the editors. Sadly, there’s no option to explore other restaurants, and events from around the area, nor does it give users the option to give their personal review and rating. What kind of City Guide is that? It doesn’t even cover schools, specialty stores (like drugstores, department stores, any store), libraries, dry cleaners, nothing like that. You can’t find it on there, or review/rate about it. You can’t even post an upcoming event in your area. This is a sad excuse for a city site. Even my city’s newspaper site can do a better job. Real sad. No way for users to jump in.

Dating & Personals: (online dating site + tips) – There really doesn’t need to be anything done to this site. Match.com seems like a great service to me. Unlike eHarmony, people don’t seem to get rejected, and they allow gay people to be on there. The site looks nice, the articles I’ve seen seemed pretty helpful, and finding people isn’t that hard. Nice simplistic design. I think it’s a great site as it is.

Dial-Up: (site offering MSN Dial-Up services) – Dial-up is like dead, period. Please, just scrap it. There’s no point to it, consider most people are opting for cable/phone/internet offerings from AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner. Dial-up is like dead considering that it’s way too slow, and DSL is getting cheaper. I think the best thing to do, is to kill this one, and concentrate on other stuff.

Encarta: (site with educational articles/quizzes/tips) – Ok, I hate to say this, but I think Encarta is a joke. I bought Microsoft Student 2007, and I barely use it. Why? Because most of that stuff can be found on Wikipedia for free, or any other internet site.  And sometimes with better quality and updates. Plus many features are pretty old and tired. It offers me little. Encarta should have more better and in-depth articles. The only thing pleasing, is that it actually has a nice look/design, and there’s some multimedia. But that’s all. Encarta on the web isn’t any better BTW.

Entertainment: (site providing entertainment news) – Same with all the other little sites, including Music, Movies, & TV – Offer up more content for people. Entertainment is basically a mash-up of them all.

Games: (casual game site) – MSN already offers a pretty neat set of casual games, and an interesting subscription feature. But how about going beyond casual games? Could MSN try putting other types of games onto the site, like video and more PC games? Or even board games? How about making 4 seperate sections on the site for each one: Internet games, video games, PC games, and board games? Internet games are played in a browser, hopefully for free or something. Video games offers a whole database of info. about practically every video game ever made, with full info. on publisher, year, videos, screenshots, and even cheats (yes, cheats). Same thing for PC games section, offer a whole database of info. on every PC game every made, and include any info. a person would want on it. Board games section can just have tips for every board game ever made, and a link to a shopping site to buy. So please, MSN, be the king of game content!

Greetings: (eCard site) – Fix up the site, to the new MSN UI look. Offer more quality eCards for free. The site just looks disgusting. Fix it please.

Groups: (community sites) – It used to have chatrooms, but they killed it. They messed up big time. Here’s how to fix it: On the chatroom side, build a new chatroom platform. Offering lots of more goodies than your usual chatroom place does. Like a consistent user profiles page, text toolbar (like emoticons, fonts, color, bold, etc.), and just anything to make a chatroom better.

For Groups, I expect them to kill it. Rebuild it, offering more tools, services, and better layout options than the old one. Integrate it into Live Spaces, and maybe call it Windows Live Groups. So now there’s more of a community/social thing going on in Live Spaces. Just make sure it offers way more than Yahoo! and Google Groups to get people on board. Or it’s sunk.

Health & Fitness: (site with helpful health articles) – The MSN Health site is pretty good. Lots of neat and helpful articles. Just focus on making it less cluttered, and a more cooler design. Everything seems to be cluttered on the homepage, and hard to differentiate. And how about offering a service? Like buying some prescribtions right off the site? Just kidding. Just do something more different, and more people will come.

Horoscopes: (horscopes/astrology site) – It’s pretty conveinent for what it does, not that I believe in it. Could the horoscope tabs, open up seamlessly on the page, instead of reloading the page? I know it probably brings more ad views, but people really like it if it works seamlessly. And please, remove the MSN Shopping ad at the bottom of the page. If I wanted to go there, I would on my own, thank you.

Lifestyle: (site about things that interest specific age groups) – One of my favorite places on MSN. I really think they have some good content. So how would they improve? First, add more age groups. There should be 5 sections: Kids, Teens, Men, Women, Boomers (seniors). How about adding a kid and teen section? There’s no dedicated place for teen interest on MSN, and the kid section in the women section is real lame. The kid section would have lots of fun casual games and other stuff that interest kids. The teen section would have articles the deal with teen trends, advice, issues, typical stuff a teenager would want to read. And what’s with the so many human pictures on MSN Lifestyle? Or any Microsoft site? Putting real faces of us humans? How about graphical icon representations? Like the ones on public restroom doors? Just something graphical icon-like. Because human pictures are subjective. Like "Why would MSN put a picture of that guy there?" kind of questions hit when users see that. And just keep getting more good content and design in.

Maps & Directions: (site that offers free web maps & directions) – The directions follows your usual algorithim like thing. It works for me. My complaints are more based on Live Maps site itself, than the directions and the maps. I already wrote a post on how Live Maps could improve.

Money: (site offering financial info. and articles) – I don’t know what to really say. Financial and business stuff doesn’t really interest me. Just focus on providing good accurate info. and make it look less bland. Would it hurt to make it a little less cluttered? Every time I see an article, the whole page is cluttered, with more than just the article. I can hardly tell what’s ads, what’s actual links to other Money content, and it’s just hard to tell what’s what by a glance.

Movies: (site offering movie info.) – The site does very well on the design part, but the content is lacking. I want to see more info. about every movie. Like trivia, goofs, and more trailer & clips and pictures availiable. I want to see as much content as I can possible. Instead of having to go to the IMDb site all the time. Or better yet, buy IMDb, and integrate it real well in MSN Movies. I never really liked IMDb because of the pop-ups that try to infiltrate my browser, and just the way stuff is laid out. MSN Movies can do better if they added more needed content.

MSN Mobile: (site features MSN Mobile goodies) – It’s a nice clean site. However, pressing on the Ringtones tab, leads me to a page with the ugly old MSN UI. That’s gotta go.

Music: (site offering music news, tracks, and videos) – Same with movies – great style, needs more content worth seeing. There needs to be a more wider availiablity of sample music tracks, and full music videos on there. I’ve seen list after list, with no sample music availiable at all. They have the single’s name, but no way to play it. I could just load up iTunes and check, instead of bothering with this site. And lots of times, MSN Music doesn’t even have the most popular music videos ever on their site. Seriously, I could just go to YouTube and find it, instead of going to MSN Music. There should be a good reason why anyone would want to go visit MSN Music when sample tracks aren’t availiable (yet on Zune Marketplace they are, and not MSN?) and even the most famous music videos aren’t availiable on the site. Even I admit Y! Music does it better than MSN. And more exclusive interviews with more famous pop stars, instead of your small indies. Just please, put up more content, and that’ll be the reason why people will come. Also, how about putting the Zune store, on the web?

News: (site offering world news from MSNBC) – Gosh, is there a whole lot of things wrong with this site. I’m going to be writing a seperate post about this later. But you know why I hate MSNBC on the web? One thing is there’s too many advertisements! On one MSNBC article, I’ve found at least 8 placements of ads. And that’s not including the many sponsored links in some of them. There’s also that annoying text-hover ads. You hover over the text, and an ad pops-up on the site. Annoying! Reallly, I expected MSNBC to be a better news service than this. The layout is also awful. Like the right margin is completely unutilized except for an occasional ad. But most of the times, there’s just a one-inch white space along the right of the page. At the same time, everything is all squashed in the middle of the page. That includes the article and other extra ‘related’ MSNBC articles sections, ads, and more useless ‘multimedia’ that doesn’t even belong on the page. Really. Plus there’s no well defined toolbar for the articles, like the Internation Herald Times does it. All in all, MSNBC on the web, is my last choice for an online news site.

Real Estate: (site related to article/news about real estate, and development) – Not much to say since I’m not deeply involved into it. The articles and content seem pretty good. But just add some more nicer design into it.

Shopping: (site for online shopping and comparisons) – Hate to say this, but MSN Shopping ought to be tossed. Really. MSN Shopping offers absolutely no more reason for me to shop on their site, than any other site on the internet. It’s ugly, and I could get better deals on Amazon. It’s just ridiculous. This is just one of those sites that’s not going to make any difference. And throwing a lot of MSN Shopping ads around the MSN networking won’t do any good. I think Microsoft should just form a more stronger and full partnership with Amazon.com. Just redirect MSN Shopping to Amazon.com. I’m not saying to buy Amazon.com, just make it one of your partner sites. Don’t take over it. Besides, Live Shopping, was way better than MSN Shopping will ever be.

Slate: (partnership magaizine style site) – Since it’s really another site’s content, I don’t have much to say. I like how it looks, but content is another thing. Most of the site is just about ads and politics. That’s what I notice. And by ads, I mean they just actually have serious in-depth articles about every ad they see. Kind of lame. And they’re so liberal. Nothing wants me to find another news site, than a site that is "too" one-sided. If you’re going to be a liberal or conservative journalist, at least say out loud you are. But it under your name. Instead of making me read through that biased junk. Plus, what kind of parntership is this? The only time I see MSN on Slate, is when I press it directly from the MSN Homepage. I’ll see the MSN logo at the top of the Slate page, along with the little banner at the top right. But when I just get it from another website, or search engine, I don’t see the MSN thing at all. Just the Ask.com search algorithm and Ask.com ads. Some partnership.

Spaces: (social blogging network site) – Not a real MSN content site, but it’s in the list of sites. I’ve already given my thoughts of how Live Spaces could improve. I’ll point out one main thing though – make it more of a social networking site . There’s no place where I can meet my friends from high school, or from college. There’s no local community groups, or any special groups on there at all. Until it can do that, it’s not a true ‘social networking’ site, since it’s so hard to find somebody.

Sports: (sports news site) – I don’t visit FoxSports much. ESPN is more my kind of thing (like most people). If we’re talking about the site, they need to just put a whole new neat look if they can. Much else than that, I’ve got nothing to say. Just that FSN should be more better and have better coverage.

Tech & Gadgets: (site related to tech news & tips) – I just have to say it right now – lame. Most of that is just reposted articles from CNET and PC World. Why doesn’t MSN Tech make its own articles? Oh, probably because MSN isn’t focusing on providing quality content, at least on this site. MSN Tech should just acquire CNET or any other site, instead of offering a lame excuse for being a tech site. There’s really no purpose at all to go there, if that content could be found anywhere. Either produce your own content, or you’re nothing.

TV: (site related to TV news, and series info.) – I’ll cut to the chase, and say what I’ve already said to the other two MSN Entertainment sites: Nice design, but a little lack of content. No user reviews/rating/trivia/goofs/extra info. is availiable on the site. None at all. It’s just a brief overview is all it is. TV.com provides much more in-depth coverage of TV series and episodes, offers more video clips, and is just overall better in terms of offering content info. So put as much coverage into MSN TV, buy TV.com, or just don’t bother. There’s potential just like the other Entertainment sites, but with no better content, there’s no reason to stick around there.

Weather: (shows weather status around the world) – This is like the only MSN site, where I don’t really need to complain. It’s like perfect as it is. Provides good quality info. about weather, has a good layout, and it’s just nice and simplistic. The only thing really, is the way you guys display your heat advisory and weather warnings. Reading an alert in ALL CAPS is kinda hard, especially when it’s all smooshed together in a box, like this. That’s really it. Fix it, and it’s like perfect.

White Pages: (white pages services) – All I have to say, is just make it look nicer. Give a better layout to the results, rather than a 90’s style rendering. It looks so crappy. Mish-mash together. And why the heck doesn’t it use Live Maps? Instead, it’s running Microsoft MapPoint, which is so old. I can’t believe they haven’t updated it. I’m not sure how releven the results are, but providing a better look would make me feel more confident.

Yellow Pages: (yellow pages services) – Kind of the same with White Pages. They just need to improve the look. But unlike White Pages, they use a well-known provider called SuperPages. They do a pretty good job actually. When it comes down to results. And the way it looks isn’t half bad. But the whole page renders awfully on my IE7 browser. When I want to see an enlarged map, it only loads up half way. And the results pages on there, is a clutter of search results and sponsored links. And they all seem gnarled together, which is confusing when you want to see results – not ads.

 So that’s about it. I don’t know how more in-depth I can be. I’m hoping somebody will at least read this. I hope I haven’t wasted 2-3 days on this for nothing. That’s like all the feedback I have to say about this.

I’m hoping the MSN employees actually will read this, and consider some of my ideas. Or else I feel really wasted.

My ranking of MSN sites

I decided to take a look at all the MSN content sites, and rank them on a 5 star scale. Things in consideration are: quality of site or QOS(ease of use, good site navigation, loads up right), quality of content or QOC(is it boring, too wordy, too unprofessional?), quality of design or QOD(is it ugly, beautiful) and that’s about it. So those are my 3 categories I’m ranking in.

So here’s my analysis of the MSN content sites:

A-List: (Show’s popular searches & popular selling things) – I personally think it’s dull. The site look a little unappealing, kind of bland. Plus are the top 5 most popular searches really the top 5? I have a hard time believing ‘autistic girls’ is a popular search. The site is just really a way to redirect you to other MSN content sites.

QOS: 2        QOC: 2       QOD: 1.5                                                                                          AVG: 1.8

Air Tickets/Travel: (Site with travel articles, review of destinations, and air tickets) – I browse from here time to time. It’s ok. I just wish there were proper article tools. And there’s way too many Expedia deals/ads everywhere. It’s kinda annoying. And where’s the place where you can set up your own travel stuff on there? Like charts/maps of where you’ve been, easy to find way of putting input on hotels or cities or countries, and just anyway to interact on the site? I know this is MSN’s content, but couldn’t they open it up a bit for user?

QOS: 3      QOC: 4        QOD: 2.5                                                                                           AVG: 3.16

Autos: (Site about cars) – I’ve been through here a couple of times. It’s also ok. They do provide some good stuff from time-to-time. The design isn’t half bad. It’s pretty good actually, like all the other MSN content sites with black themes. I don’t understand why the Local Traffic Map and Gas Prices doesn’t use Live Maps, instead of the old MapPoint technology, and why it’s so darn ugly to use and read through? Plus there’s a real lack of pictures and videos and info. about many cars on the site. They really need to work on it more.

QOS: 3.5        QOC: 2      QOD: 4.5                                                                                        AVG: 3.3

Careers & Jobs: (Job-finding site and tips) – The site’s ok. It does what it’s suppose to do, find a job. And there are articles that give you tips, but they’re kinda squashed up. But finding jobs is really nice, especially with the filter they’ve got, and it’s pretty good in terms of finding a job. Not that I need one.

QOS: 3.5        QOC: 4.5         QOD: 3                                                                                     AVG: 3.6

City Guides: (Site about places to go in your city) – The old one was much more better than it is now. The old one at least focused on events and places in your city. The articles you see today, are about a wide variety of cities in the U.S. – none of them are always in particular to your local city. I really wish the staff had a local team in each major city, writing articles about their particular city. And where can I find all the restaurants, clubs, libraries, dry cleaners, and see reviews and ratings about each of them? For a city guide, it’s not helpful.

QOS: 4           QOC: 1             QOD: 2                                                                                  AVG: 2.3

Dating & Personals: (Finding other singles, and tips on love) – I’ve seen it a couple of times, and this is a real good site. Plus, unlike eHarmony, people don’t get rejected, and gay people are allowed on here. That’s way better service for most people. Not that depending on an online dating site is helpful. I haven’t really used it, but I did take a look. It’s pretty good actually.

QOS: 4.5       QOC: 4            QOD: 4                                                                                  AVG: 4.1

Games: (casual game site) – I’ve been in and around Games. It’s pretty cool. You can try trial games, or play on the internet for free (with ads). You can also get badges, but they’re more for show and self-pride. They also recently launched GameSpring, and it’s pretty much a monthly subscription to all the games you want on the site. Pretty cool

QOS: 4.5       QOC: 5         QOD: 4                                                                                      AVG: 4.5

Health & Fitness: (site with helpful health articles) – This is also another one of the better websites. I found a lot of good articles. I like it a lot. It’s pretty helpful. They always seem to update often. They pull a lot of content from many medical sites.

QOS: 4.5      QOC: 5           QOD: 3                                                                                   AVG: 4.1

Horoscopes: (horoscopes/astrology site) – It’s an ok site. I took a quick look at every then and so. Not that I believe in it, it’s just for fun. It does pretty much what any horoscope site does. It does it pretty good.

QOS: 3         QOC: 4        QOD: 3.5                                                                                  AVG: 3.5

Lifestyle: (site about things that interest specific groups) – It’s pretty much a site where you can find lots of neat articles and tips about things that might help you with life. There’s a women, men, and boomers (seniors) section. They’re all different. I of course prefer the men section. I like voting on the polls, browsing through some of the articles, it’s all pretty cool. It’s one of my favorites.

QOS: 4      QOC: 4.5       QOD: 4                                                                                    AVG: 4.1

Maps & Directions: (site that offer free web maps & directions) – Ok, this is kind of a cheat. It’s not really a ‘MSN’ site. It just redirects you to Live Maps, with the Direction window open. I’ve already talked about it before, and it does a pretty good and decent job. I like it. Just wish they would fix up some stuff.

QOS: 3     QOC: 4.5        QOD: 4                                                                                   AVG: 3.8

Money: (site offering financial info. and articles) – I’m not much of a business/finance guy, so I don’t visit often. Too many numbers for me. It looks ok, and the site’s kind of bland. It seems to offer a lot of stuff, and that’s cool. I haven’t really gone through this site much, so I’m just guessing what score it would make.

QOS: 4    QOC: 4.5      QOD: 2.5                                                                                  AVG: 3.6

Movies: (site offering theater movie info.) – This is one of the sites I check often. MSN Movies has a pretty nice design, with great content. It does a pretty good job of finding the movies I want to find, gives me the times, and whatnot. I really like it. Of course, it doesn’t offer full movie info. like IMDB, but it does the basics really well and sometimes more.

QOS: 5   QOC: 4    QOD: 5                                                                                          AVG: 4.6

Music: (site offering music news and some music tracks and videos) – MSN Music is also a very pretty cool site to hang around. They’ve got music news, and they offer from time to time, some music singles you can pop-open on WMP. Not to keep of course. There’s also sample tracks you can listen to, pics, and your usual music stuff. I’m not that deep into music, but it’s pretty cool.

QOS: 4.5   QOC: 4   QOD: 5                                                                                      AVG: 4.5

News: (site offering world news from MSNBC) – All in all, I usually like NBC and it’s affiliate networks, even MSNBC on TV. But MSNBC on the web really sucks. There’s tons of ads, including the hover-text ads (ugh). And they don’t utilize the page margins properly. It has good news, but the layout of it all really kills it. If only they could improve the design layout of MSNBC.com, it would feel more welcoming to read. Content is good, design is bad.

QOS: 3       QOC: 4        QOD: 1.5                                                                              AVG: 2.8

Real Estate: (site related to articles/news about real estate and development) – I don’t care much about home improvement, home development or anything like that. But it seems like a good site with lots of articles about it. I guess they would come useful to anyone interested in it.

QOS: 3      QOC: 4      QOD: 2.5                                                                                AVG: 3.1

Shopping: (site for shopping online and comparing deals across stores) – Ok, I just seriously don’t even want to bother going to this site. It’s just looks so un-friendly. I’d have better luck going to Amazon.com and comparing deals there. Sorry, but MSN shopping has always seemed like a dud to me. One that ought to be scrapped.

QOS: 1.5    QOC: 2       QOD:1.5                                                                              AVG: 1.6

Slate: (partnership site with magazine-style with news) – It’s a somewhat interesting online magazine site. I’ll definitely give it points for style. But what’s the deal with so many criticizing articles? I’m not much of a politics person, but I hate one-sided news agencies. I don’t care if it’s liberal or conservative, it’s just wrong. Can’t 2 equal sides be represented? I’ve noticed liberal articles are usually attacking the government or something, and it’s always making fun of, and it’s just something I don’t want to bother reading. Too negative to me. Plus it’s not a real good partnership site. If you don’t come to Slate directly from MSN, there’s no MSN banner links, and MSN logo anywhere. By default, there’s an Ask.com search box, and Ask.com ads all the way. Some partnership that is.

QOS: 4     QOC: 2.5     QOD: 4.5                                                                            AVG: 3.6

Spaces: (social blogging network site) – Another cheat. It’s really a Windows Live service, not MSN content. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Live Spaces is a great place to blog and make a few friends, and have your own personal web page. But Microsoft insists it’s a social networking site, when I can’t view any local community groups, register my high school or college, or really connect with anyone I know. So it’s a dud in that sense. It’s good, but not so as a social network.

QOS: 4     QOC: ?      QOD: 4                                                                                 AVG: 4

Sports: (sports news site) – I visit every so often. I’m not much of a big fan of FoxSports. More of an ESPN person. But it provides some good articles, host lots of sports (not as much as ESPN though), and it’s pretty ok. I was just kinda wishing MSN made some deal with ESPN instead of MSN. But I think ESPN is owned by Disney (who knows why?), who has a board director with Apple or something like that. So Microsoft deals seem like a no. But this is just websites of course. So who knows. I don’t like Fox at all.

QOS: 3.5  QOC: 3.5     QOD: 3                                                                              AVG: 3.3

Tech & Gadgets: (site related to tech news) – This pretty much is ‘all’ stories reposted from sites like CNET and PC World. So it’s pretty disappointing. I’m only interested in the poll and some of the highlight articles displayed on the frontpage. It’s pretty disappointing.

QOS: 2.5   QOC: 1.5    QOD: 2                                                                              AVG: 2

TV: (site related to TV news and episode series) – I like MSN TV. All of MSN Entertainment is cool. There’s some neat TV news everyday, and it provides a pretty good database of TV shows and series. It lacks a dedicated community beyond the message boards though. Users can’t put up reviews of each episode, rate TV show or series, add trivia or anything to it. It’s all done by MSN so that’s sad. I still prefer TV.com to find all my TV episode info., but if MSN made a larger community push, they could really do wonders. I pretty much only check it for showings.

QOS: 4     QOC: 3.5    QOD: 4.5                                                                           AVG: 4

Weather: (shows weather status in cities around the world) – I like MSN Weather. It’s pretty simplistic. I can find weather anywhere, and they have pretty good info. about weather. You can also save the weather for your favorite cities, and see them at a glance when you enter the site. Of course you can find weather info. virtually anywhere (on your desktop [like I do], TV, newspaper, out the window, etc.) but MSN Weather is pretty neat in itself. Although I’m not sure how reliable Foreca is compared to the National Weather Bureau.

QOS: 4   QOC: 4     QOD: 4                                                                                AVG: 4

White Pages: (site providing white page info. on any local area) – Boring. I’d have better luck finding another site. Looks so bland, full of ads (not surprising when there isn’t real content), and is really that hard to put some good design in it? Like a logo with a white book and white pages? Something? And why does the Yellow Pages tab revert you to the Yellow Page site on MSN? Or why is it even placed like that in the White Pages site? Weird. And the layout of the info. is so ugly. Even Intelius (the white pages provider for MSN) does a better job in the design dept.

QOS: 2   QOC: 2.5    QOD: 1                                                                               AVG: 1.8

Yellow Pages: (site providing yellow pages info. to any particular area) – Same with White Pages – boring. The page you come to looks so bland. At least the results look decent and nice. They’re from SuperPages, one of the highest rated Yellow Book search sites. They even use Live Maps, and do a good job on it. So content wise, it’s pretty cool. Design is a bit lacking when SuperPages isn’t involved.

QOS: 3    QOC:4.5   QOD: 2.5                                                                            AVG: 3.3

Other MSN sites not mentioned in the list of the homepage:

Entertainment: (site providing entertainment news) – Pretty much a mash-up of other MSN Entertainment sites, like Music, Movies, TV. It’s pretty neat too.

QOS: 4    QOC: 4.5   QOD: 5                                                                            AVG: 4.5

Groups: (community sites) – Lame. Whatever happened? It’s like a flashback from the 90’s, and never got updated. It’s still not updated like the other MSN sites. And it’s sad they tossed Chatrooms out of there. It just looks so lame, that I’m not going to even go through it. I say that MSN brings it back. Rebuild Chatrooms and make it have lots of feature and look nice. Then rebuild Groups so that it’s better than Yahoo!’s or Google’s Groups, and integrate into Live Spaces, as Windows Live Groups. That way, there’s at least some community place on Live Spaces, and Groups doesn’t have to die like this. MSN Chat (rebuilt) and Windows Live Groups (on Live Spaces).

QOS: 1  QOC: 1.5   QOD: 0.5                                                                          AVG: 1

MSN Mobile: (site feature MSN Mobile goodies) – MSN Mobile is actually a pretty good site. Very clean, and a pretty good design. Easy to navigate through, and I like it. Better than most other sites. However, as of 8/7/07 the Ringtones Tab leads to the ugly old MSN UI. Otherwise than that, it’s great. But in a world where people want to view real web pages, instead of basic info at a glance, there’s no telling what the future of MSN Mobile will be like.

QOS: 4   QOC: 4   QOD: 3.5                                                                         AVG: 3.8

Dial-Up: (site offering MSN Dial-Up service) – I thought the side would be awful, but it’s actually not so bad. In design that is. But as the world moves forward, nobody wants dial-up anymore. And the rates at which MSN is offer it seems ridiculous. $21.95 after the trials? What a scam. And I’ve heard AT&T or other services offering DSL at lower prices than that. That’s pretty sad. And it’s peculiar why they offer McAfee Security instead of Live OneCare. I seriously think this needs to be scrapped. Dial-up is like dead in America.

QOS: 3.5   QOC: 3   QOD: 4                                                                        AVG: 3.5

Greetings: (e-card service from partnership with American Greetings) – Site is pretty lame. All the really good stuff is in the paid subscription option. I think there are better eCard site than this. It also still has the old MSN UI.

QOS: 2     QOC: 3    QOD: 1.5                                                                    AVG: 2.5

Encarta: (site with educational articles/quizzes/tips) – I really want to say that I like Encarta, but I can’t. I mean all this info. can be found on Wikipedia for free! With even more info. And Encarta isn’t always up-to-date so fast like Wikipedia. In terms of Encyclopedia info., Wikipedia has the edge. And most of the other stuff and educational ‘services’ can be found on other sites. I really like the style/looks of Encarta, but it just doesn’t have anything really good for me to stick with it. Luckily, I have some free subscription that came with Student 2007.

QOS: 4    QOC: 3    QOD: 4.5                                                                    AVG: 3.8

Ok, that’s all the sites I’m going to bother reviewing with. There’s a few other little MSN sites out there, but they’re not so important for me to put up. So there you have it. Sadly, most MSN sites just don’t have good content, or they don’t have good design for people to see. The perfect site has good content + good design. There’s only a few sites that have this touch (namely the MSN Entertainment sites), so it’s kinda sad. I’m hoping MSN can kick itself back up, and start throwing more better content and design into it. Or there sites won’t even be bothered with.

Based on average rank, the top 5 sites you might be most interested on MSN would be:

1. Movies                  2. Music                    3. Games              4. Entertainment               5. Lifestyle

The least 5 sites you’ll be interested:

1. Groups                 2. White Pages            3. Shopping           4. A-List                         5. Tech & Gadgets

 

So there you go. I hope you appreciate my long and tiresome review of the MSN content sites.