Some realistic videos of Windows 7 demos – teasers

It seems that Microsoft made several Windows 7 teasers. Though it doesn’t actually say it’s Windows 7, you could probably already guess it is.

So there’s two of them. The first one is about Windows 7 and how it can be accessed/connected anywhere. Like some strong "integration" feature for Win7.

I thought that was a good one. There’s also another one, about how Win7 "includes smartphones, mobile connectivity, cross-platform communication, Tablet PCs, virtual office synchronization, collaborative editing, professional networking (think LinkedIn), VOIP, internet shopping and remote presentations with video"

http://images.video.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf

Via Long Zheng.

Both very similar videos, and both to give a rough look at Windows 7 and what it can do.

Enjoy.

The so-called Windows 7 leaks

There was a ridiculous video about Windows 7 M1.

But to me, it seriously looks like a joke.

I mean the whole things screams "Vista!!!". It even says Vista on Media Center.  6.1 is reminiscent of Vista. NOT the 7 I’m looking for.

But, there are ‘some’ people who say that this is how all pre-versions of the next Windows OS is usually like. Like how Longhorn (which became eventually Vista) looked a whole lot like XP at first.

But even then, this video shows NOTHING at all significant about Win7. I mean, that must be humiliating to Microsoft. One, somebody leaks their new OS already. Or 2, somebody leaks a fake and embarasses Microsoft with it.

Whether it’s real or not, shame on that guy for posting up such a video.

a) Shows nothing new besides a Win7 logo.

b) Leaking a company’s product way before it’s going to be released is a no-no

c) You’re a loser for posting it, just to get darn attention

That’s it. I have a couple of "real" Windows 7 concepts though in my next post. They look like they’re created officially be Microsoft, and seem to be a teaser at what’s coming in Windows 7.

So please, IGNORE this guy’s video. Not like the tech media hasn’t.

Is Ford SYNC really that cool?

To me, it’s not.

                                 

I like the concept of Ford SYNC – the ability to connect Bluetooth phones, PMP’s, etc. so you can use them hands-free with your voice.

This can be very useful. By controlling via your voice, you can keep your eyes on the road, and not have to stare at the screen of anything. Less car accidents maybe? At least it’s better than crazy drivers who try to input things onto a device while driving at the same time. Guys have a smaller portion of the frontal lobe (or whatever controls multiple actions) in the brain, thus they have a hard time doing multi-tasking. At the same time, guys are usually more of a tech gadget person. So mixing gadgets and driving may not be good. But with SYNC, there might be a way to ease the best of both worlds.

But it doesn’t come without some things I find bad about SYNC:

• It’s exclusive with Ford (who also owns Lincoln and Mercury) – Couldn’t that software be available with other auto makers too? Not that I have anything against Ford, but I want choices instead of being locked-in.
• The menu on the car screen is UGLY – What is this, the late 80’s? I don’t know why the menu screen looks rather rough and archaic to use. Would it have taken that much longer to polish up the UI a bit? If it’s a touchscreen (which I’m not sure of) it doesn’t look really friendly to navigate.
• It’s a $395 option – I think that’s rather expensive for a piece of software that just recognizes voice input. I think it should be around $200-$250
• The SYNC ‘voice’ sound too robotic – I don’t really know how companies make electronic voices, but the always seem robotic. SYNC’s isn’t any different. I’m ok with robotic, but I doubt it would take that long for a sexy-sounding person/people to say common simple lines that the system usually responds with the most. That would be much more appealing.
• NO other integration from Microsoft – How about a Live Maps integration, to get traffic info., gas prices etc? Especially if the car has it’s own built-in GPS. Can you pop CD’s or DVD’s in SYNC and view them in a WMC/WMP-like interface? Display RSS feeds via WiFi? Any other interesting tech bits in a car? It seems to me that more could be done than just syncing devices.

So overall, I just think Ford SYNC kind of under-delivers what I would expect for something like this to be implemented. I kind of want more.

I found a neat link where a guy and a girl test-drive SYNC. It’s pretty interesting.

Windows Live Reader

                                                                             

I got an anonymous tip from somebody. So don’t take this as a leaked info. or anything. There’s a possibility it’s not real. Plus, I don’t even have screenshots to show. 😦

So anyways, coming in 2008 is supposedly Windows Live Reader – a program that’s suppose to be able to display any RSS feeds, documents, spreadsheets, eBooks, and possibly online newspapers, and e-mails. Maybe even anything with subscriptions (user-made). Sort of like a Google Reader, but more.

There’s a desktop version (of course) and a web-based version.

Microsoft might be buying NewsGator to help accomplish this task. NewsGator appears to have small friendly ties to Microsoft with practically the best RSS reader for Windows (not Mac), work with SharePoint 2007, and RSS add-on for Outlook. All appear to be free. So obviously, considering that NewsGator has pretty good ties with Microsoft products, an acquisition from Microsoft wouldn’t be too surprising.

So here’s some "unconfirmed" speculation about it:

• Can display Kindle eBook content via partnership with Amazon
• Contain Silverlight/WPF
• Might read all Microsoft Office formats – for those unlucky enough not to have Office
• Be available mobile
• Ability to display title link, short excerpt, or even the whole thing (including all pics, videos, Flash parts, etc.!)
• Subscribing and adding is as easy as 1-2-3
• Imports IE7 RSS feeds, Outlook Feeds, or any other currently used feed service on user’s computer
• Able to export to any other possible feed service
• Podcasts! Ability to subscribe and view on WLR as well.
• Sharing feature – share feed(s) with contacts or whoever via e-mail/WLM
• Dynamic inline search
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Metadata (tags) support
• Possible extension of WLR to Xbox 360 to view on a big screen?
• Folders – duh
• Video subscriptions via MSN Video?
• Possibility of small text ads

So just that you know, these are some ongoing details of what could be in WLR. Hopefully it’s as easy to customize, have a good UI, and do add-ons/extensions.

Links for 01-19-07

Some interesting links I found:

• Latest sites to upgrade to Virtual Earth platform – Yellowpages.com, Ohio Department of Transportation, and Coldwell Banker are the latest sites to utilize the VE platform.
• Windows 7 preview – Here’s an interesting look at the future of Windows 7. A mix of possibly Surface computing, sync anywhere integration, smart home features, etc. Shows a demo of what it would look like. Watch the video.
• Comparing WLPG Panoramic Stitch tool to paid professional ones – A very great comparison of how WLPG photo stitching tool compares with an expensive one. Lots of photos and details.
• Neat Silverlight site – A French Microsoft TechDays 2008 site has a neat Silverlight site. Sort of resembles a Surface-like interface. Where you can stretch video thumbnails, drag and drop, etc. Pretty neat. (Be aware : site is in French and takes a while to load)
• Organize your IE7 favorites – DownloadSquad has a great IE7 article about managing favorites.

Give these a read.

Trying out the Opera browser

                                                                    

So I’ve been giving Opera a try for a month now. So here’s what I think.

What I like about Opera over IE7:

• Faster – really fast. Pages change practically instantly. Well, maybe I’m overexaggerating, but it at least ‘feels’ like Opera is faster. I never really noticed a speed issue with IE7. But it is fast like Opera fans say.
• Skins – Opera has some really nice skins, if you don’t like the default look. Still don’t get why IE7 doesn’t manage to get a real skins-developing community. I saw a few and like getting a overall new look for my browser.
• Choice of blocking ‘unwanted’ pop-ups – IE7 has a great pop-up blocker, but sometimes when I actually press a link that I want, IE7 regards it as a ‘bad’ pop-up. That’s dumb. As far as I’m concerned, links I press are legit.
• The "Wand" – This feature remembers personal info. like name, city, address, e-mail, phone number, etc. to place in when you’re entering info. for a new account or anywhere where you might need to put such info. Just press it, and it automatically does it for you. IE7 doesn’t seem to have that option, or at least a easy way of finding it. Though Live Toolbar has a thing called "Form Fill" which does practically the same job.
• Best zoom feature – Out of the top 3 browsers, Opera does page zooming the best. I don’t really notice that much of a difference, but Long Zheng, a techie, wrote a post comparing the top 3 dogs, and their zooming power. Opera wins, with IE7 a close second. Though this was written in August 06′ so maybe it’s not the most current page to review from.
• View site source code – I can’t find that option in IE7, but Opera for sure does. Now I’m not a geek, so I don’t see any use in it, but for the people that want it, it’s in Opera.

Now what I don’t like about Opera:

• "Fast-forward" and "Rewind" button are useless – There’s two buttons right next to the usual "Back" and "Forwards" buttons, called the "Rewind" and "Fast-Forwards" button. They’re suppose to guess what page you want to see next, or go back to. Guess being the main thing. I tried it, and it doesn’t do anything I want. I mean how can you guess where I want to go next? Dumbest buttons ever, and you can’t remove them.
• No "Recent Pages" drop-down button – Probably comes from me being such an IE7 user, but that button or a way of doing so doesn’t appear in Opera to me. In IE7, right next to the "back" and "forwards" button, is a drop-down arrow, where you can view the many recent pages you’ve just been to, and a checkmark on the current one you’re on. Say if you want to go back to a page you were viewing about 4 minutes ago, you don’t have to keep pressing the back button so many times to get there. Just go to Recent Pages arrow, and select the page. Easy as pie. Nothing like that in Opera
• The whole Widgets idea sounds kinda dumb – Widgets/Gadgets are cool, but directly from a web browser? Um, that’s kinda useless. If you got OS X, you have the Dashboard. If you have Vista, you got the Sidebar. And if you have neither, you can go for Y!’s Konfabulator or even Live.com gadgets. Simple as that. The ones in Opera aren’t any different from the others, so it’s rather useless.
• I hate the Menu bar – Coming from a person that uses IE7, I found that I rarely/never use the menu bar. It just takes up space, and doesn’t really add anything pleasing when browsing. Though I can turn it on if wanted. But it’s not an option with Opera. You HAVE to have the menu bar. Not a choice. So I still prefer IE7 because it’s much more streamlined than Opera is.
• Doesn’t work well with Windows Live sites – Not Opera’s fault (blame that to Microsoft), but it sure is a let-down if you happen to use Windows Live a lot. Even though Microsoft’s tried to extend to other browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari are still let-down in the cold. Going to Live Hotmail, I get the reduced version, instead of the full version like on IE7. Silverlight doesn’t work for Opera. Sigh. A lot of issues with Live and Opera.
• No Live Search listed in the browser search box – I was a bit upset with this. I mean, how can you NOT support the 3rd most used search engine? They do have Google and Y!, and even Answers.com and Amazon.com, but no Live Search? Instead, I had to go through the tedious task of entering in the Live.com site, and trying to get it to work for like 20 minutes. I thought that was rather dumb to just not include a big list of search engines like IE7 does. IE7 shows a ton of search engines, while Opera doesn’t.
• Full screen mode not as good as IE7 – Now while Opera really does show only the web page in fullscreen, you have to find the fullscreen option in the menu bar (or press F11) to launch it. And to get out of it, you have to press either the F11 or Esc button. It took me a few minutes to realize I couldn’t pan up to show a quick render to turn it off. With IE7, there’s a Fullscreen button right on the panel, and once you’re fullscreen, you can just bump around the top and a quick mini-render of the browser panel comes up allowing you to turn off fullscreen mode. Since I’m more of a mouse than a button person, I find that better. Though IE7’s fullscreen still show the scroll bar and usual bottom bar in that mode.
• Side panel – Takes up a lot of screen real estate if you open it. Somehow, I think IE7 does this in a more effective way.
• Some sites will render awful – Even though Opera’s suppose to be have better compliance to web standards or whatever, some of my favorite sites won’t render well in Opera. I don’t like that.

So that’s my stance on Opera. It’s a great alternative if you can’t get IE7 or want to try another browser, but there are things that (compared to IE7) seem less as good as other browsers.

So I suggest you at least give it a try to see what it’s like. On a scale of 1-5, I’d rate it a 4.

Amazon.com + Windows Live/MSN?

                                                + = ?

I got a tip telling me of a possible partnership with Microsoft and A9, the parent company that owns Amazon.com.

Could there be a possibility of some possible integration with Amazon and Windows Live/MSN?

It’s not like both companies hate each other. A9 uses Windows Live Search. Live Spaces uses its Music and Books modules, where users can search for images of book covers and album art, and links provided go directly to Amazon’s site.

So why not partner?

I could see it happen 2 ways. One if it’s just a simple partnership:

• Allowing of Amazon’s MP3 Downloads service from Zune Marketplace (to add more to what’s already available)
• MSN Shopping site is dead
• Direct downloads of Microsoft software (Windows, Office, etc.) from the site – not like Microsoft has a real store site anyways
• Amazon Unbox Movies and TV shows available on Zune/Xbox Marketplace for rental or purchase (or just make the Zune a PlayForSure device in the first place!)
• Live ID’s have a more better centralized account, and have less issues signing-in with the site
• Advertising from Microsoft (blech)

Now if Microsoft actually manages to buy Amazon.com/A9:

• Amazon MP3 Downloads service is directly placed in Zune Marketplace (without need for the Amazon label)
• Amazon Unbox also gets ported directly to Zune Marketplace and becomes the place buy/rent movies and TV shows for Zune
• A slight site make-over (Amazon still looks cluttered with useless junk on every product page)
• Silverlight on some parts of the website
• MSN Shopping site is still dead
• Live ID users get extras, to encourage people to use the Live platform but not have to
• Direct downloads of Microsoft software from the site
• Kindle gets rebranded to Live eBook? Or get eBooks directly from Zune Marketplace for Zunes?

I could see this as a big boost for Amazon to be noticed by even a larger audience. Microsoft could finally have an online shopping site to possibly trash MSN Shopping with, and integrate classifieds (Live Expo) with.

Now I doubt a partnership with Amazon means any radical changes to the site. Like you definitely won’t see Windows Live Amazon take place. Or a deep Live ID necessity. Just minor things like ads when searching, better integration with Live services, and things like that. Where Amazon and Windows Live act more like a cohesive force.

And hopefully, if Amazon.com does buddy up a bit with Windows Live, maybe they should reconsider giving the site a more simplified look. There’s a bazillion pieces of useless junk on a product page that’s not needed.

Maybe the popular Amazon MP3 service will also be accessible through the Zune Marketplace?

There could be many possibilities with an Amazon.com + Windows Live/MSN partnership. I would love to see that.

Taking a look at the so called Windows Mobile 7 leaks

                                                                                 

Well there was a so-called WinMo 7 leak, the other week. I didn’t get around to posting about it until now. So here’s my thoughts on it.

Based on what I see, WinMo 7 really looks impressive. Not just another small WinMo update with just some small features. But some new radical features. Things like:

• Emphasis on touch and motion gestures
• New swifter mobile IE, that’s not as cumbersome looking, and even as tabbed browsing
• Incorporating ‘smart’ features, where the phone itself can guess what users actually want when doing an action
• Pivot system in some areas (think Media Center-like or Zune device UI)
• Magnifying screen areas – a little balloon will show the tiny area you want to better see small things

So yeah, these are pretty impressive. Now some people will say that this is just the copy of the iPhone, or that the iPhone wouldn’t have made Microsoft even go with this stuff. That is, if this stuff is real.

But unlike where a lot of Apple fans always will say that Microsoft just copies anything, I would have to disagree with some points. One, this ‘copy’ has a few things the iPhone doesn’t.

1. iPhone mainly does touch gestures – WinMo is working on trying to touch AND motion gestures. Motion gestures as in waving around the screen/camera, moving the device itself, and who knows what. With the iPhone, you’re just moving your fingers along the screen. And the only multi-touch feature I’ve seen is magnifying photos.
2. WinMo is more like a mini version of Windows – Not just media and the internet. Like the iPhone caters to. WinMo 7 is designed to do those better as well with Office Mobile, and work with a ton of other add-ons that you aren’t even allowed with the iPhone.
3. Works along with many types of phones – Apple might have the upperhand with only having to work with itself. But WinMo 7 is now designed to be better poised to work on multiple types of hardware phones, and that’s 10X tougher to deal with. Now if only Vista were designed to work better across other types of hardware…
4. Cheaper – WinMo phones are usually cheaper, yet do a lot more. And if it looks rougher to you, than the iPhone, just find some skins and download them. Great to have an OS that support add-ons, right? Some have better cameras, some with great hardware, etc.

So there. WinMo has always been a great platform. iPhone is also great, because it sort of redid the concept of what a mobile phone can do, and how it does it. Which is why it’s so popular in pop culture these days. I wouldn’t say it’s an innovation, but more like putting a new face on what’s been done for years. It’s great to have competition.

And maybe the iPhone did have something to do with Microsoft’s new WinMo 7, depending if these really are real, and if it did, does it matter? Just another example of competition doing great things for consumers. Who cares who copies who? Apple’s copied tons of times before, and it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s just who does what better that matters.

So putting that aside, I have my doubts if these screenshots are the real deal.

I mean those ideas Nathan Weinberg told about, and ‘some’ of the screenshots sound really amazing. If this were the real WinMo 7, I would love it. But…

Looking at the screenshots shows it’s really hard to believe that. Some have a really nice shiny UI looks, with a glassy orb in the center bottom. BUT, some of the other screenshots don’t have that orb thing. Or any orb at all. And where the connection signal and battery level are short at the bottom, other’s show them still at the top. Weird, right? And some of the graphics that show off the ‘gestures’ you can do with WinMo 7 look janky than they ought to be. Though considering this is just a rough beginning look, not too hard to consider. So this could be another one of those Photoshopped photos of future UI’s that might be juicy to some people.

I also thought WinMo 7 was a MINOR update to WinMo 6, just with a way better internet browser, and better media tools. Not something as advanced at this. That’s suppose to be WinMo 8 if this stuff is real. OR WinMo 8 will even be more revolutionary than this, and that means Microsoft is really cracking the ball and doing some hard work to make their platform better. OR another possibility if that we’re just looking at rough sections of what’s really WinMo 8, and WinMo 7 is either in final development or ready to ship soon this year to be ahead. Who knows?

So I’m still having doubts, but at the same time I hope Microsoft really is doing what leaks Nathan discovered.

So here’s a possible look at WinMo 7. Here are some screenshots I picked up.

               

         

        

For more, check out Nathan Weinberg’s site, InsideMicrosoft for a more detailed look. I’ve subscribed to his feed for a long time. He has some pretty good posts. And blogs a lot more than I do.

Things I noticed about the Microsoft Keynote at CES

                                                                               

I just gave checked out the Microsoft CES keynote today. I know it’s late, but I decided to play it in the background as I was surfing the web.

I usually never like Microsoft keynotes. I mean there are some good parts, but then there are really a lot of boring parts, and parts that shouldn’t be in there.

So here’s my thoughts as I was watching:

• "Bill’s Last Day" video was pretty neat. Microsoft must have paid some big bucks to get some of those stars in it (though I think Obama and Clinton did it more for publicity – and did you notice no Republicans?). And they did it in the same kind of style as "The Office". I thought that was a good humorous video.
• Bill goes on about ‘the future’. I love to hear things about the future (I love to speculate about future things, as the title of my blog says), but coming from a tech company, I expect to actually see something that will actually come out soon. The concepts Bill talks about are neat, but I hate hearing futuristic predictions from a tech company, but seeing nothing that will come soon. Microsoft needs to talk about real things, not things off in the distant future.
• There’s a demo of some Windows Live services. Now some Windows Live services really are great, but I don’t think it was worth showing at CES. It looked more like an ‘ad’ for Windows Live, than really showcasing anything new. I also thought her demo could have been more lively, and the way some of the Live services were displayed were a bit tacky than what they really do seem. Sigh. Maybe they’ll get it right one day.
• Then a Surface demo. Pretty interesting as a retail-kiosk-like thing. Thought the demo was more slower than it should be, but it’s probably still in works. Wish there was the technology for consumers though.
• Silverlight demo. I think it’s pretty neat that NBC/Olympics thing will be worked with MSN and Silverlight. I’m a big fan of the Olympic Games (kept tabs on Torino 06′ all the time) and seeing Silverlight technology with it would be pretty interesting. Though I hope that Silverlight has a more stable release before August or whenever comes.
• Connected entertainment (Xbox 360, Games on Windows, Media Center, Mediaroom/IPTV) talk. Same kind of stuff like we already knew. New partners. Demo of Zune Social – not too bad. Then demo of Ford Sync (still think it needs work itself) was also ok.
• Then there’s WinMo. Not much news at all about upcoming WinMo OS. Bill shows Tellme with voice AND see (you can talk to find info. AND see it on your screen as you talk).
• Bill then shows neat concepts. Like virtual media in Media Center, showing like individual pieces of colorful media. Cool looking, but it’s really more like eye candy. And then there’s using WinMo + Virtual Earth, and how the phone can recognize real life buildings, and give you an update on your interactions there (like aiming the device at the Bellagio displayed a message that Ballmer was doing slots). And that’s about the only interesting future demos there were.
• Guitar Hero end. #1 Guitar Hero player plays, and some character called Slash jumps out. And crawls right back in.

Well this was a rather disappointing keynote to me. No showing ANY new products to come out soon/later. A lot of this stuff was like showing off the latest things from Microsoft (like some dumb ad), talk of what the future will be like, new partnerships, and no new of new products. Sigh. How disappointing. You would think Microsoft could bring more amazement to their keynotes. But I couldn’t help but stiffle a yawn.

Hopefully next year’s Keynote will really display some new amazing products, and give us better insight of how Microsoft will better tie-in existing products/devices. But it’s sad to see that Bill Gate’s last keynote really didn’t go off with a bang. 

9 Reasons why Windows Live Spaces will never take off as a ‘social networking’ site

                                               + = EVER?

I wouldn’t even consider Live Spaces a ‘social networking’ site. Part of the reason why, is that most people don’t even see it that way. Here’s my reasons as to why Live Spaces will never be a social networking site:

1. You NEED to have a Live ID account – With Facebook and MySpace and other sites, you can use any old e-mail address. With Live Spaces, you NEED a Live ID. A lot of people have one (Xbox Live users, foreign countries) but not everyone has one. Or wants one, and making them need one in order for them to use the site might come off as an annoyance and they’ll look for a different site. So either Live Spaces completely drops that requirement, OR allow any e-mail address to be used, but Live ID accounts have more extra features and goodies associated with them. And giving them a good list of reasons why going for a Live ID might entice users to go for one. That would be the smart thing.
2. No Networks to join – That’s the thing that doesn’t make me consider Live Spaces even a social networking site. There’s no place for users to connect to each other on the site. It’s up to you to hopefully find a local friend by other means than on the site itself. Like by asking via IM, e-mail, or whatever. But you would rarely ever find a friend using the site itself. Sad. My solution would be to simply make a place for networks to exist. 3 main ones that users can join (and stay with): Education (the school you’re in), Workplace (maybe a legit. company who put in their own network), and Region (city, state). Facebook does that, and it’s really neat the many people you can find from these networks.
3. No Groups to join – Another social aspect down in the dumps. There are rumors of a Windows Live Groups, but until we see something, I can’t tell if it’s any better than MSN Groups (which seriously has issues and needs updates). Looking for included features like a discussion board/forum/threads, group profile (direct info. about the group), area to post photos, area to post videos, area to post news, general messages area, assigning group admins/officers, private/open groups, place to post files, way to alter the group’s site look, etc. All those essentials have to be in a group to make it a good one.
4. No social applications/gadgets to use – In the first place, there’s not many social modules (Live Spaces uses ‘modules’, equivalent of Facebook applications). In the second place, there’s not even many good Live Spaces gadgets. So that kind of makes Live Spaces rather boring. Really. I mean what’s there to do on Live Spaces with your friends? You can add them, but then what? Live Spaces introduced the Guestbook feature where you can leave messages, but there’s not bonus features users can put in like the ability to doodle, or record video messages via webcam. Otherwise, the only ‘social’ modules are your friends list and your profile. Which is rather lame. Live Spaces first has to create networks and groups (in a way that’s good and solid), and entice developers to build great social modules (if the API’s allow good enough developing). Or better yet, actually work on creating them yourself as well and putting some integration with WLM, Live Hotmail, and other popular Live/MSN properties.
5. Site might take a while to load – For some people, Live Spaces can be rather slow. For people like me, I don’t even notice. But I do hear complaints how the site can be rather slow to load than other sites, and that’s one thing Live has to fix up on. Maybe use better code or scripts or whatever website makers user? Just improve the site’s overall speed with less loading. I think the graphical ads at the top of free Live Spaces contribute to the slowdown. Also, when try to add changes (such as moving modules around, adding gadgets, etc) the page takes a while to load.
6. Use of graphical ads over text ads– One thing I love about Facebook is the use of text ads over graphical ads. Graphical ads slows the site loading. They can be distracting also, especially if they make noise, react to mouse cursors, and especially if they pop-out (not pop-up) by cursor rather than clicking. Either ways, most people prefer to see a text ad than a graphical ad. Graphical ads have even made some people download add-ons to block Flash banners of all kind. So how about switching to nice clean text ads on the page (preferably only when searching or at least not at the very top) instead of distracting annoying graphical banners? Do that, and I might actually click on text ads that I might find interesting.
7. Not much of a place for users to build/share their customizations – There is Live Gallery but I still find the site rather too modular and non-friendly, and there aren’t separate place to post things other than gadgets. Maybe Live Spaces could allow users to create unique themes, upload photos and crop out display pics, with the addition of better gadget-making tools, and post them up on Live Gallery. The Live Spaces section in Live Gallery can have 3 separate sections for users to create and post stuff : Gadgets, Themes, Display Pics. And any other way for users to create/modify Live Space and post them on Live Gallery would be great too.
8. Page modifications could use more – Modifying your profile page can be a hassle on Facebook, but it’s much more customizable in MySpace and Live Spaces. Live Spaces can improve on the moving of modules. I would love to see modules moved with more simplicity like Netvibes, where you can move around modules at any time (not in a special module-moving mode), where you can pick-up a module and scroll quickly along the page where you want to move it to (currently you can’t scroll at all – you have to pan towards the bottom/top and that can take a while if there’s lot of modules, or big ones), and dotted lines appear EXACTLY where you might plan to move it to – so you don’t mess up. I also wished modules could be completely scalable, where they don’t have to fit in a certain column. Or at least be able to be stretched/compressed in 2 or more columns, or 2 or less columns, without having reduced functionality. Also, when you’re doing advanced options to tweak your Space, can we get more of a Live Preview-like thing, similar to how Office 07′ works? And how about a nice big ‘undo’ button, in case we don’t like the one change we made, but still be able to keep other changes made, and not have to exit and start over again? And can you somehow work on making the color selection tool more better, where you can pick exact gradients, and shades directly via the page, instead of a new window? Just making modifying less of a hassle.
9. Getting rid of the misconception that Live Space is all about blogging – because Live Spaces (at the moment) is really all about blogging. At least that’s what it seems more designed for.

I doubt Live Spaces will ever be really a social networking site at all, or grow large enough to be recognized. Who wants to say ‘Live Spaces’, when ‘Facebook’ and ‘MySpace’ sound shorter and cooler?

So while Live Spaces continues to be my blogging site, Facebook will be my social networking site.