MSN Issues New Messenger Beta

By David Worthington, BetaNews

October 29, 2004, 2:22 AM

Microsoft Beta Place testers have reported that they have received a refresh of the MSN Messenger 7 beta, which includes many bug fixes. MSN Messenger 7 is slated to have new personalization options borrowed from Microsoft's ThreeDegrees concept, new transactional services, improved contact management, and integration with MSN Search.

The ThreeDegrees test bed is the territory of Microsoft's maverick NetGen product group. Developed with the goal of facilitating social interaction within a group of friends or family members, Three Degrees aims to allow users to "do fun things together."

To this end, ThreeDegrees has functions calls "winks" and "nudges." Microsoft describes Winks as animations with sound that grab the attention of IM contacts and convey personal expression. America Online has a name for these too - "AIM Expressions". While Winks make users the center of attention; Nudges provoke attention. Nudges alert IM partners by making notification windows vibrate.

MSN included the Winks feature in Messenger 7, but has since removed it because testers found ways of exploiting the feature for the purpose of loading malicious content onto a contact's computer. Nudges remain in the beta.

Although Microsoft has abandoned Winks in the present release, other initiatives to personalize the client such as Avatars in Korea and emotion packs in the United Kingdom are lead-ins for value added transaction services. The Messenger 7 beta broadens the scope of testing to include background wallpapers, packages of emoticons, and display pictures. Tests of the transactional business model will be conducted in the United States, UK and France.

Rival America Online already has infrastructure in place to cash in on personalization. When it released its AIM 5.9 clients, AOL rolled out year-long and monthly subscription plans that include access to their collection AIM expressions, buddy wallpapers, buddy sounds, 2-D buddy and animated "SuperBuddy" icons.

Additional options include the ability to set status before log in, and a new "invisibility" mode. Microsoft has also exposed display pictures more frequently through the client, and a new contact management feature helps contacts stay connected.