Scott Yang's Playground

Windows Live “beta” — absolutely the most talked about topic on Internet over the last two days. Heavy “Ajax” that has been all over the web these days which I have started to hate. Doesn’t work on Firefox yet, and it constantly crashed my Internet Explorer. Still, sounds like Microsoft has finally decided to ditch its pure desktop application model, and move onto Internet portals of the late 90’s.

Well done Billy!

And we also get Microsoft Gadgets. I was expecting modular widgets that run on desktop like Yahoo’s Konfabulator, Google’s Desktop sidebar or Apple’s Mac OS X Dashboard, but it turns out to be web applications described in XML, coded in Javascript, rendered in HTML and plugged right into Live.com and Start.com.

So, other companies are moving back to the desktop, where Microsoft embraces the web? What the?!

Elsewhere on the net:

• Russell Beattie — Microsoft’s Live: Monopoly 4.0. Windows Live is about integreting “live services” between web and desktop applications, and Microsoft is set to dominating not only your desktop, but all your web sites/web services as well.
• Joel Spolsky — Massive Frontal PR is incompatible with Ship Early and Often. Yeah. It is all about PR, and when you have lots of $$$ in the bank, you get PR!
• TechCrunch — Windows Live - More than an AJAX Desktop. Windows Live is cool, especially that AJAX Instant Messenge client that integrates with VoIP and runs inside your browser.
• Tim O’Reilly — Live Software. Microsoft has realised that Internet itself is indeed a platform, and Microsoft is also the one that has power to build an end-to-end integrated experience.
• Robert Scoble — Joel, and others, give us hell for Live.com. Everyone is giving Microsoft a hard time! But more interesting thing is to come — from some undisclosed internal sources deep inside the company, of couse.

Well, there are absolutely too many discussions out there. Basically there are two kinds of responses from existing “Web 2.0″ companies/developers — (1) Welcome! (2) Go away! But one of my favourite is this comment here by Nivi:

Do you know what you get when you spell live backwards?

You get evil.