Chris Pendleton pointed this one out to me. Fresh Logic Studios took the Virtual Earth map control and MSN Local Search API and created their own interface into mapping business listings. I like this one better than the Local.Live.Com interface.
Category: music
MSN’er adds to China discussion
Michael Connolly, a product unit manager on MSN Spaces, adds onto the China discussion with a post titled “Running a Service in China.” Here’s a quote from his post: “In China, there is a unique issue for our entire industry: there are certain aspects of speech in China that are regulated by the government. We’ve made a choice to run a service in China, and to do that, we need to adhere to local regulations and laws. “
March, month of Web Conferences
Whew, everyone seems to want to do a Web Conference in March. There’s SXSW. There’s O’Reilly’s ETech. And now Microsoft enters in with Mix 06.
I’m speaking at SXSW and I’m helping out on the Mix 06 team.
My first question is “will Bill Gates let us put a back channel up during his keynote?”
After watching the interchange at Les Blogs between Mena and Ben, I’d guess not, but you never know. This isn’t going to be a PDC or a TechED.
So, why do another Web conference?
Well, my trip through Europe punctuated why. I kept meeting businesspeople who had bet their businesses on Microsoft’s Web technologies. From Reuters to L’Oreal to Heineken to dozens of other CTO’s and CEOs that I met who told me they are using Microsoft technologies and wanted a way to learn only about those (since most of the other events are heavily LAMP-focused).
Does anyone else find it ironic that the Microsoft conference is the one with both a blog and an RSS button? Next thing you know Microsoft will be adding tags, making deals with Firefox and getting along with the Web Standards Project, and figuring out how to do great maps and great search. Hmmm.
Anyway, what Web conference are you going to in March? Hope to see you there.
Tom Harpel says BlogJet is cool (MSN Spaces now has an API)
So, the MSN Spaces users now have MetaWeblog API (thanks Dare for letting us know), which means they can use blog editing tools other than the browser. Tom Harpel says BlogJet is cool. I’m wondering which one is better, Zoundry or BlogJet? Or a different editor? Dare has a list.
Privacy concerns raised (and answered) about Live Local
Yet another example of how blogs can be used to answer concerns raised in the community. Here the MSN Search Blog answers privacy concerns raised by O’Reilly and BoingBoing.
MSN Spaces has an API…
Nice to see that MSN Spaces now supports the MetaWeblogAPI, thanks to Dare Obasanjo for posting that on his blog. Why is that a big deal? Because now developers can build things that can write to MSN Spaces. I’ll have to see if Maryam can use Flock with her MSN Spaces-based blog, for instance.
Scott is confused by “Live”
Scott Hanselman, one of our best customers, is confused by Windows Live.
Shhh, Scott, don’t tell anyone, but this isn’t about just the portal. And if anyone at Microsoft thinks it is I’m gonna come and kick them in the rear.
It’s about a new advertising platform. It’s about giving users new services that can be docked on the live.com page or in other places. It’s about a new URL for search. Sorry, typing in http://search.msn.com was too confusing and convoluted. It’s a lot easier to say “go to live dot com.”
It’ll all make sense when the subdomains start popping in.
What opportunity is there for developers? Lots. See, you’ll be able to create a service box that’ll drive traffic back to your site or blog. Why would you do that? Well, on your blog you’ll have a monetization service that’ll give you a paycheck.
But, yes, they made this stuff too complicated. I see it clearly in my mind now. I’m going to get some videos now and make these teams simplify what they are trying to say.
We don’t know how to romance developers anymore (if we ever did). Sorry about that.
Oh, Joe Wilcox wrote a post about “what is live.”