Today's Davenetics (it's a newsletter) noticed a flurry of wireless deals came about today. AOL is planning mobile versions of instant messenger, email, and other AOL services, Microsoft is working on mobile MSN and Hotmail, while Amazon has unveiled their phone portal to shopping. Looks like we will soon be reminiscing about the good old days when the internet used silly wires and cables.
posted by mathowie on Feb 28, 2000 - 1 comment

Mars, the next version of MSN, is just around the corner. It's obviously an AOL clone, giving new users a view of the internet filtered for ease of use. My opinion of it is split. On the one hand, there's nothing wrong with making a useful, straight-forward interface that anyone can use. In fact that's a holy grail for UI designers. But the interface is a bit much, taking up over a third of the screen real estate, and it will no doubt funnel users into all of the MSN websites. Will MSN users know the rest of the internet is out there?
posted by mathowie on Feb 27, 2000 - 3 comments

Bantu is the holy grail of instant messaging apps. The people behind it have been working on this for a while, and they're now offering a web-based, java client that can talk to ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo instant message clients. If it were a client side application, I'd probably use it, I'm not a big fan of leaving a browser window open all the time. Another drawback is that it can't reach AIM users.
posted by mathowie on Feb 20, 2000 - 3 comments

The bandwidth speed test over at MSN seems to be the most accurate one I've used so far. It gave out statistics that are very close to what I expected, and didn't choke just because I'm on a T3. (thanks blogblog)
posted by mathowie on Jan 13, 2000 - 0 comments

AOL and Microsoft are resorting to playground antics. I downloaded the new MS messenger when it came out last Thursday, and I've already gotten three patches for it, each time it works with AOL users for just a few hours. I wonder how long they'll continue the dueling banjos thing.
posted by mathowie on Jul 26, 1999 - 1 comment