Seriously, their "Messenger" software was the most emblematic of this. If memory serves, the name of the program in chronological order is:
1. Windows Messenger
2. MSN Messenger
3. Live Messenger
4. Messenger
The constant needless iterations of the software - which was basically perfect around MSN Messenger - made it suck so much, because they wanted to cram social gunk into it, add toolbars, and revamp the interface for no goddamn reason that I would willfully give it up and shun digital contact with my friends, since I don't have a Facebook user.
Your point - that the software was at its peak when it was called MSN Messenger - is exemplified by the fact that most people still call it MSN Messenger. It seems even teens, who've probably never seen this brand out in the wild still call it MSN.
A thing that is so serendipitously weird about the program is that it has the best IM emoticons of any IM client of all time.
I think they since replaced the icons with some new eye sores, but it was fascinating how the smilies in some way revolutionized the way I and others communicated, because they really helped create a good mood and served the purpose of disambiguation.
Smilies and emoticons aren't a gimmick, which some erroneously believe; it's just that they have to be designed properly before they can serve a purpose. For one, people have to want them because of their design, and second, they have to convey the user's mood unambiguously. Interet forums (AKA bulletin boards) often live or die by them, because the worst-case scenario results in the must insufferable atmosphere of bitter curmudgeons.
Developers at everywhere from Facebook, Skype, Google, and Tapbots don't seem to get this and just include for them for reasons they probably don't know themselves.
The smilies were actually a huge part of what made the older version of Messenger great, and for more important reasons that people would think. It was the main litmus test when I compared to competitors; none of them got it. I believe it was also fairly novel in introducing the "X is typing a message" feature, but I could be wrong on that.
It wasn't perfect by any means; the X Messenger Plus extension became mandatory fairly early on: http://www.msgplus.net.
Whenever and wherever I possibly could, I always disabled graphical emoticons in favor of the text-only versions. I don't know why--maybe it's the same reason I turn off HTML email and do all of my programming and most of my writing and notekeeping in vim in a terminal window. Suffice it to say, it's quite weird to see someone wax poetic about the minute details of designing one of my least favorite features. It's so strange that even though I can't detect a bit of irony in your post, I'm still not sure whether or not this is some kind of elaborate joke.
it's quite weird to see someone wax poetic about the minute details of designing one of my least favorite features
Someone has a different opinion to you. This is not rare, and should not be surprising. Turning off HTML e-mails, using vim... you are in a tiny, tiny minority. Nothing wrong with that, but don't go around thinking that people are being ironic because they don't agree with you.
Oh I know--that's why I mentioned all that stuff, to point out what you're saying--but this is still Hacker News, and it seems a bit incongruous to see that particular opinion stated so intelligently on HN.
Smilies are great for disambiguation, as people have some innate tendency to assume the most negative interpretation of a comment online; look at the culture of manufactured outrage in the U.S. over absurd interpretation of what people say in the public space. Of course, smilies like ":D" and such are rarely useful, and I prefer communicating in text to smilies when possible. (My Twitter feed barely has any smilies.)
I can see why you would usually turn them off, because they are often misused and superfluous, but text-based smilies usually serves the purpose perfectly well.
Go to a community like Quarter to Three[1] and behold the surliest community that has ever been suffered onto mankind. Emoticons do wonders in forum-based (BB-based) communities to lighten the mood.
Text is very poor for conveying tone, as your response and the ensuing conversation conveniently illustrate. Even if text weren't poor at the job, people would lack the time and skill to wield it convincingly.
Don't get me wrong, I hate smilies for the most part. I still see their purpose, when relevant, though.
If people use them, they are useful, but my feeling on smileys has always been negative. The vast bulk of the time they are used to disambiguate a joke or sarcasm. But telling people you are joking kills the humor anyway, so just write plainly.
Emoticons/smilies and such do emerged for the very reason you say, disambiguation of things that could be taken out of context in mail form.
Note that this disambiguation does not necessarily mean "making less ambiguous".
A smiley could also mean "make what I say more ambiguous, because I mean it in an ambiguous way (e.g half joking)".
So, it's only disambiguation in a meta-level: making what should be ambiguous more ambiguous, and what should be taken literally more literal.
>Smilies are great for disambiguation, as people have some innate tendency to assume the most negative interpretation of a comment online; look at the culture of manufactured outrage in the U.S. over absurd interpretation of what people say in the public space.
I think "manufactured" is the key word here (that and hypocrisy).
People used to be more vigilant about that kind of hypocrisy, but only if it's by people on the right (i.e a strict republican "man of god" that's caught red-handed with a prostitute, not on the "left", e.g a blog post in the lines of "Booth babes at a tech expo, that is so sexist" by someone who's idea of fun is Hooters).
This is basically Microsoft's internal organizations being forced outward, and powerful marketing people attempting to either latch onto existing brands where inappropriate (Windows, also often Office) or build new ones (Live, SQL, Visual Studio).
What's happened now is that there's finally someone sensible with enough pull to get these back in line- Sinofsky. Core services for Microsoft are getting the Microsoft brand (Microsoft Account), and the unnecessary 'Windows' prefix is going away. It's just mail now. (Thank you very much Apple for initiating this trend).
As a note http://apatch.org/index.php A-patch is a patch to rip out the social gunk and toolbars, I haven't used Messenger in years so I don't know if its any good anymore but it used to be great for keeping the UI tolerable.
nothing of value was lost? There was no mention of Windows Live Writer in the announcement, which saddens me a bit. It is the best piece of software of its kind that I know of for writing blog posts etc.
MSN has had an ad at the bottom of the chat window for a long time - at least since version 4.X. The version which came separately with XP, 'Windows Messenger' (which would, for some reason, operate separately from newer MSN versions installed on the same PC) didn't have the ads, however.
Seriously, their "Messenger" software was the most emblematic of this. If memory serves, the name of the program in chronological order is:
1. Windows Messenger
2. MSN Messenger
3. Live Messenger
4. Messenger
The constant needless iterations of the software - which was basically perfect around MSN Messenger - made it suck so much, because they wanted to cram social gunk into it, add toolbars, and revamp the interface for no goddamn reason that I would willfully give it up and shun digital contact with my friends, since I don't have a Facebook user.
This is why Windows users drink.