Microsoft Vine (Beta)

[engine]

Microsoft Vine (Beta) [vine.net]

Use the dashboard to know what’s happening. Information associated with the places you have chosen will appear on your map, including articles from 20,000 news and public safety sources. Information from people you care about, such as alerts and reports, will appear on the dashboard too. Send and receive alerts. Organize people into groups - the sports team you coach, people who live nearby, family far away, special friends, and emergency contacts. Each person defines how they want to receive alerts – through e-mail, a text message, or on their computer. Reach them quickly using alerts.

Part of that sounds very twitter-like.

If you want to take part in the beta, submit your e-mail address to request an invitation.
[vine.net...]

[vine.net...]

[Hugene]

First, why is their demo video with no sound, not a good marketing start IMHO.

Second, maybe they should try to bundle this with MSN Messenger, that would increase the software's usage.

Also, MS seems to be falling in the same branding trap as G: they should drop the Microsft and the Beta from "Microsoft Vine Beta". Vine on its own is a cool name.

Finally, I am not sure I really need an agregator for news (I have RSS for that) and social-web sites data (I already have too much of that).

What is cool though is the fact that the aggregation is partly done on the visual plane and not the textual one.

Still, it just looks like a mash up of news feed/facebook feeds, overlaid on a map and with Messenger capabilities. I bet someone (like G) could do a better job at this on a browser (so no download need) using AJAX.

[nealrodriguez]

Also, MS seems to be falling in the same branding trap as G: they should drop the Microsft and the Beta from "Microsoft Vine Beta". Vine on its own is a cool name.

line extensions, line extensions; hotmail did great by itself.

[walkman]

launch a site without buying the .com first? Or do they plan on destroying this domain owner with lawsuits as well? The word spreads faster now

[alphabetize]

I just watched the video and still have no idea what it does.. nice one microsoft

[Seb7]

Always inspired by the look of some of Microsoft pages.

What this product actually does is very unclear, but its only going to be available to United States.

We hope to hear your stories of how you use it, why it matters and what you’d like to be able to do with Vine in the future.

Seems like Microsoft is unclear about what to do with it as well.

I've read all the info and can only say it seems to be like some kind of instant messaging service that connects to social networks.

[bill]

I don't get enough out of that demo video to make an informed opinion about this service's merits/demerits. I did put my e-mail address in there for the beta though.

Also, MS seems to be falling in the same branding trap as G: they should drop the Microsoft and the Beta from "Microsoft Vine Beta". Vine on its own is a cool name.

Unlike Google, this appears to be an actual beta process. They're asking for feedback during the beta, and it sounds like they may change the product based on that user feedback.

[Seb7]

ok. I've now got Vine installed. (took quite a number of clicks!). Play with it for 5mins and still not quite sure what to do with it.

I think from what can understand, you setup different contacts and categorise them, then you can update or send messages to different groups of contacts. I suppose its taking Twitter/Facebook status to a different level.

Has a messenger like interface which links up with its own version of MSN maps which I assume means you can message different physical areas too.