Dead Space

I’m not a Microsoft basher by nature, they’ve just been setting themselves up to get slammed for their antics lately. When I got to work today, our CEO sent out a link on our email listserve – Windows Live Spaces Goes after MySpace. I trembled in anticipation of the revolutionary product imitation that Microsoft was launching now (As if tremebling in anticipation of Zune wasn’t enough excitement for me).
From the VOX article:

Hotmail users, for example, can share their address book (Live Contacts) among their IM service (Live Messenger), web mail (Live Mail), and blog (Live Spaces) That integration facilitates security, with Live Spaces allowing users to specify who can contact them, see their profile, and access their blog. Live Spaces users can also select “gadgets” to personalize their pages – ad a news ticker, quote of the day or weather forecast, for example.

And here is a tasty screenshot of the product:
livespaces_sm.jpg
Friggin amazing Microsoft. You’ve done it again with another bland imitation of a successful original. Let’s run through the list of ‘features’.
Live Spaces integrates with these MS products:

  • Live Mail (Hotmail) – I don’t use my Hotmail account anymore
  • Live Messenger – I use AOL Instant Messenger

Now when MySpace came out, people felt the need to switch from Frienster because it did things its competitor didn’t. You could up media files (video, audio, flash) and you could ‘hack’ your profile page through Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) adjustments.
Now Microsoft is doing what it has done in the past and to only copy something on the surface. There’s no underlying concept or vision for the future with their new product, other than, We are 800 pound gorilla, We need control this market, we get angry if can’t win, grunt, grunt.
Now there are 2 train tracks with wrecks waiting to happen. First Zune, now Live Spaces. Hey Microsoft, how about making it a trifecta?
Take a look at Live Spaces.