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February 18, 2003

Microsoft's Bigger, Badder IM

Posted by Mike on February 18, 2003 7:26 AM

Well, this is sort of interesting. Microsoft is about to release a public beta of "Three Degrees," which looks to be an enhanced, ad hoc chatroom with multimedia:

"Here's how the software works. You invite friends to form a posse of up to 10 participants. Representing the group on your desktop will be a colorful image, either one from a set provided by the software or something one of the group has produced. (It could even be a digital photo.) If you're online -- and since threedegrees assumes you have broadband, you're probably online all the time -- you give your friends a holler simply by sending the equivalent of an instant message. Everyone in the group will see it. If you want to send them a digital photo, you simply drag it over the icon and it shows up on everyone's computer. Then there are 'winks': small animations that you trigger to run on everyone's screen.

"[. . .] The most ambitious feature is called musicmix, an online equivalent of a pajama party where people take turns playing deejay. Each group member contributes favorite tunes into a shared playlist, displayed on a dashboard with a customized 'skin,' and everyone listens together. A click from any participant can choose a new song."

(Via /.)