LiveSide - News blog : MSN Entertainment

Michael Jackson In Silverlight

Sunshine — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:16:31 GMT

MSN UK has a whole page dedicated to the recently departed Michael Jackson. Who doesn’t know what he ment for music and dance? You can find just about anything about Michael Jackson on this tribute page. Most prominent is a Silverlight application featuring hundreds of photos of Michael Jackson, his life, his work, his fans and tributes to his career as King of Pop.

You can zoom in (using the scroll wheel of your mouse, by clicking or by using the navigation buttons) and drag around (hold mouse button and move) to look at all the separate photos, varying from Michael’s childhood to more recent ones. Just make sure you have installed the latest version of Silverlight. All photos in this Silverlight gallery © Press Association.

This sure is a nice way to remember Michael Jackson, may he Rest In Peace.

Source: Deep Zoom into MJ’s Life in Pictures | Sarah In Tampa | Channel 10

Partnerships for MSN Video with MTV Networks and Sony BMG

Sunshine — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:41:00 GMT

Yesterday two partnership announcements appeared concerning MSN Video, one with MTV Networks and one with Sony BMG. They are European deals, but who says it won't expanded in the future? MSN Video is currently available in over 23 countries. On February 2nd it got expanded to the following countries and languages: Russia, India, Belgium (Dutch), Belgium (French), Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines.

MTV Networks: The European deal covers MTVN video content for the UK, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden, with Belgium, Denmark and Norway to follow. MTV and Microsoft will also be looking to extend the agreement to other European markets.

Sony BMG: The European deal covers Sony BMG video content for the UK, France, and Germany with the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Russia and Poland to follow.

MSN Video is currently viewed by more than 6 million European unique users per month. The MSN Video audience grew by 60% in five months from July to November 2007 in established markets (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands) and nearly 70% taking into account the addition of MSN Video in Sweden and Denmark.

So now you can go and watch your favourite shows on MSN Video such as Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher (known from "That 70's Show"), Pimp my Ride, Cribs and South Park! Music fans will be able to choose from a wide selection of videos and exclusive videos as well as backstage footage, interviews, artist biographies, tour information and photos from some of the biggest superstars, representing virtually every genre of music.

...(read more)

Microsoft Online Services @ CES 2008 keynote - Not much to report

Chris — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:33:00 GMT

For those who missed the CES 2008 keynote, Bill Gates' last, you didn't miss much in respect to Windows Live. Nathan Weinberg liveblogged it, with the main appearance being a demo Windows Live Calendar, Events, Photo Gallery and Spaces. As you've probably noticed by now, these are a conncted set of services that work well together. Not much more to really say here except that the official press release doesn't even mention Windows Live once, so really this was just a token "show and tell" from Microsoft.

Silverlight also got a mention, as MSN and NBC combine to bring the 2008 Beijing Olympics to a US audience at NBCOlympics.com. Promising over "3000 hours of live and on-demand content", this portal should help drive both Silverlight adoption and MSN traffic in the second half of the year.

Apart from a mention of the voice command technology Microsoft acquired with TellMe, found in the Live Maps application for mobile devices, there wasn't a lot else happening for online services. If you want some new and exciting stuff, stay tuned for Mix08 in March.

(Keynote on-demand: 100K, 300K, 750K)

MSN Video share surges - Soapbox and Live Search doing well?

Chris — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:40:00 GMT

In the latest Compete traffic rankings for video services released today, MSN Video shows a marked improvement in October compared to September. Visits were up 25.3% to 35m, giving it almost 9% of the video market in 2nd place. In comparison YouTube/Google has almost 54%, with Yahoo coming 3rd, 0.5% behind MSN.

So what has caused this dramatic increase? Aside from it potentially being a random blip (MSN had a 7.5% decrease for the September/August numbers) it seems that there are two possible reasons for the change.

The first is that at the end of September MSN Soapbox was migrated from a stand-alone site to part of the new MSN Video portal. This addition of user generated content to the premium content traditionally hosted by MSN Video has given a slight rise in videos per user, from 1.60 in September to 1.65 using the October numbers. It looks like MSN Video managed to succeed in attracting new users to the site, so the November numbers should show whether MSN has managed to retain them for a 2nd month.

Additionally the Live Search update was released at the end of September also, and part of this includes the new video search engine. Whereas the old Live Search had this feature tucked away as "in beta" and powered by a 3rd party, the new Live Search is promoted much more prominently. Featuring as an option on the main search homepage, switching to video search is now also available direct from regular web or image search results. The new mouseover video previews are also particularly cool, and help to engage the user with the content before they click through to view the full clip.

It'll be interesting to see if this growth can be sustained through to the end of the year - I'm not sure it will but hopefully I'll be proved wrong.

MSN UK launches redesigned homepage

Chris — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:23:00 GMT

After the January Effect we spoke about some months back, all has been quiet on the MSN hompeage front for a while now. Today MSN launched a new homepage design for the UK portal. Featuring a new header with a London Eye logo, it is very similar in appearance to the existing Australian NineMSN portal that was tested in beta form at the start of the year.

The new Wave 11 UK homepage now features a sidebar that contains some basic Windows Live Integration, through which users can access Windows Live Maps and their Hotmail inboxes too once signed in to Live ID. Disappointingly none of the links offer any functionality on the homepage itself though, instead redirecting users to the appropriate pages within the various Windows Live services.

In the sidebar there is also a module promoting the main Windows Live services, with Hotmail, Messenger and Spaces included, along with Live Maps and interestingly Skydrive. While it may seem slightly strange that MSN UK is promoting a service that only offers 500MB storage, Skydrive most likely needs to be scaled over the next month or so before it launches out of beta. The sidebar also adds MSN Weather functionality, with users able to pin the 3 day forecasts for upto 4 locations.

The general homepage layout has changed slightly, with a more prominent featured articles section spread across the middle. Additionally the main navigation panel at the top of the page that links to the various MSN services now has a more Windows Vista/Windows Live feel to it. The differing button sizes and left aligned labels should probably be fixed though.

With Windows Live moving towards Wave 2 over the next month, it's likely that additional countries will also see the new MSN homepage appearing. You can give your feedback on the new design over on the MSN UK homepage blog.

Thanks Jamie and Jon for the tips.

Live Earth concerts this weekend

Chris — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:30:00 GMT

Just in case you missed it, the Live Earth concerts take place this weekend to highlight climate change. If you didn't manage to get a ticket, you can watch the concerts online at http://liveearth.msn.com/ both during the performances and afterwards. The website also has some useful information if you want to go "green", including unusual tips such as using bamboo for your wooden floors.

Let us know if you're heading to any of the events - I'm going to the London concert so here's hoping it doesn't rain!

MSN Soapbox reopens to public with copyright content filtering

Chris — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 02:00:00 GMT

Today sees MSN Soapbox return to a public beta after having closed back in March. The reason given for the closure was that Microsoft needed time to deliver a technological solution to resolve the piracy issues that have plagued other user-generated video sites such as YouTube.

The relaunch sees several backend changes taking place, notably around performance and encoding. What is significant is that Soapbox is also adding CopySense technology from Audible Magic to automatically filter our copyright content. On top of this, content owners will be given access to automated tools allowing them to find and remove their copyrighted content. MSN Soapbox currently features a new UI that was launched at the end of April and brought the service much closer to MSN Video and the other MSN Entertainment websites.

While this is a move that will please the content owners and not the users, it'll be interesting to see how this and the YouTube lawsuit affects Sopabox's long term popularity. (YouTube is also integrating Audible Magic technology.)

Still to come is the new video site from NBC Universal, News Corp, AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo to create "the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled with the most sought-after content from television and film. ...The video-rich site will debut this summer with thousands of hours of full-length programming, movies and clips, representing premium content from at least a dozen networks and two major film studios." With Microsoft already offering content from these providers on MSN Video, there seems to be the potential for some significant overlap here. Lots still to happen in this area for sure.

The Soapbox team now has a post up ~~but fails to mention the new copyright technology. Transparency guys.~~ Now they do.

New Soapbox and MSN Video launched

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:11:00 GMT

As we posted earlier, a new relaunched MSN Soapbox has been announced, and is available for trial for those who are in the Soapbox beta. In addition, a new version of MSN Videos, at next.video.msn.com has launched as well, and is available for anyone to view.

From the Soapbox on MSN Video blog:

Completely reworked from the ground up, the new Soapbox on MSN video now offers a clean UI with improved navigation and performance.
Some of the Upgraded Features:
- Scalable Page. Change the size of your browser and the thumbnails and page will scale dynamically.
- New Player with integrated Playlists and Progessive Download Indicators.
- Playlist Functionality. Each time you watch a video it is automatically added to the playlist.
The Playlist can also be shared.
- Improved Fullscreen Experience
- Video Gallery Sorts. Sort by Hour, Day etc.
- Updated Embedded Player with clean design and Playlist features

Soapbox Update

ScottIsAFool — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:11:00 GMT

A post on the Soapbox Team Blog has alerted users that a change is coming as the Soapbox site goes down for a couple of hours whilst they make some changes to both the front end and the back end of the service.

"We have taken all of your feedback into account and spent the last few months redesigning and upgrading, both the frontend and backend of the service."

So this means that whilst they are doing all this, none of the embedded videos or gadgets will work. In the meantime, what are they doing with UI? Well, basically, this:

The whole menu system has had a massive facelift, and now works in the same way you might expect a Windows application menu would work:

Browse Videos

MSN Soapbox closed to new users amid piracy concerns

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:38:06 GMT

ZDNet News is reporting that MSN Soapbox is being closed to new users for up to 2 months as Microsoft sorts out piracy issues. ZDNet quotes Adam Sohn, a director in Microsoft's online-services group, as saying that no new subscribers will be accepted, but anyone who has already signed up for Soapbox can continue to access the site. According to the story:

Sohn said the changes were not forced on Microsoft by its new partners, although he acknowledged that some of the content providers were very interested in how his company planned to clean up Soapbox.

"This software company is aligned very closely with the notion of intellectual-property rights," Sohn said. "We feel this is the right time to make these changes and stand up to do the right thing."

The news comes on the heels of an announcement between NBC Universal, News Corp., and AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo! to create "the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled with the most sought-after content from television and film. ...The video-rich site will debut this summer with thousands of hours of full-length programming, movies and clips, representing premium content from at least a dozen networks and two major film studios."

Lots of interesting positioning going on as the battle for video distribution rights begins to play out. Should be quite an interesting space to watch in the coming months.

Microsofts Video HyperLink Technology Showcasing Kohl’s

Darren Straight — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:32:00 GMT

It looks like Microsoft is now starting to implement its adCenter Labs Video HyperLink Technology with real world clients. The first signs of this come this week as MSN Entertainment shows of Kohl’s department store using the Video HyperLink Technology, which is an interactive video tool which provides more information about objects in a video when you click or even hover on them.

For example, you might want details about a product you see in the video. So as the video plays, you can move the mouse over the product to see where more information is available. Then, you can click the summary information to go to a merchandize website for details.

Check out Kohls department store Video HyperLink at:

http://entertainment.msn.com/videohyperlink/kohls

And for more information about the Microsoft adCenter Labs Video HyperLink Technology check out the following site:

http://adlab.microsoft.com/default.aspx