Steve Rubel sez, “Where’s the sharing, the community? Is Microsoft really a Web 2.0 company or wolf in sheep’s clothing? To me Web 2.0 is more than fancy schmancy Ajax web apps. It’s about social computing; creating ways for people to share online in a meaningful way. Very few if any of Microsoft’s “Live” exploits have any sharing features. It’s all hat, no cattle.”
I hate to admit it but I kind of have to agree with Steve. Although I was pretty impressed by all the glitz when it was launched I find that I don’t really use the site. I did get an invitation to the live mail thing but then when I tried to click through I got some crazy error message: “Hotmail does not support the .NET Passport you are signed in to. Visit the Hotmail Web site for information or to set up a free account.” Huh? I thought I was getting live mail, not hotmail. And I’ve never even had a hotmail account before.
Passport anything by the way is an instant kill as far as I’m concerned. The company where I work has passport blocked via the SonicWall and if I can’t access it at work then I may as well skip it. Anytime I see passport stuff it drives me crazy. Do I need a passport for Flickr? Do I need a passport for Delicious? Do I need a passport for Digg? Do I need a passport for Technorati? Nope.
So I hate to say it but so far live.com doesn’t do much for me. I’m already using NewsGator for my RSS. I don’t really care about the weather. Stock quotes? No thanks. Horoscopes? Groan. Shopping? Please, stay away. This thing needs to be more than a glorified MyYahoo!, it needs to delight and impress me. What am I missing here?
Where is my compelling reason to use this site? If it was the mail, I can’t even get that to work. The fancy AJAX stuff is there but where is the creativity? It seems like the lights are on but nobody’s home.
Give me a full screen Flickr slide show, or incorporate blogger into the mix somehow, or give me something, anything to encourage me to use the site. Show me something new and cool to do with Technorati or PubSub. Or use Sitemeter to show me my last 20 referrers to my blog and my top 20 referrers today. Do something with music or pictures or something with the Internet Archive or with Pandora or All Music Guide — give me anything but another glorified RSS reader. Hook up Orb and let me have my Media Center in it or give me total access to my Media Center PC remotely. Or how about even this new idea, come up with even some brand new thing that nobody’s even thought about yet. Innovate. Until then I have to agree with Steve and say, where’s the beef?