Last year, Microsoft launched the "I'm Initiative," which donated nibbles of advertising revenue to 10 selected charities each time a Windows Live Messenger user started an instant message with the word "I'm." On Tuesday, after a year of the gimmick, Microsoft representatives announced that $1.3 million had been netted so far.
Bill Gates would be proud.
"Because of your enthusiasm, we're also excited to announce that we will be continuing this program," Windows Live Messenger product manager Dharmesh Mehta wrote in a blog post. "And with no set limit on the amount donated to each organization, the more 'I'm' conversations people have, the more money that goes toward addressing some of the world's most urgent social issues."
The 10 nonprofits receiving donations from the I'm Initiative are the American Red Cross, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the Humane Society of the United States, the National AIDS Fund, the National MS Society, NineMillion.org, the Sierra Club, StopGlobalWarming.org, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and UNICEF. Windows Live Messenger users who want to participate are asked to choose which organization they want to receive their click funds; the precise amounts netted by each one were not disclosed, but Microsoft has said that each one has received a minimum of $100,000. The I'm Initiative has also sponsored Cause Effect, a program about social action on the MTV Networks channel MTVU, which is syndicated on college campus broadcast networks.
Mehta wrote in his blog post that Microsoft is considering adding other charities to the list.
It's a good thing Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger Santa is just an AI-powered chat bot. You'd probably want to think twice before sitting on his lap.
According to The Register, the now-disabled Santa bot that was once IM-able at northpole@live.com was prone to off-topic suggestions about oral sex. Microsoft has acknowledged the claims and disabled the chat agent.
While this feature might have had appeal to a limited portion of adult users, the Santa bot was unfortunately designed to be used by children. According to The Register, Santa made a reference to oral sex when chatting to two preteen girls...about pizza.
Register writer Chris Williams claims the Santa bot replied, "It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else," when he repeatedly asked the bot to eat a slice of pizza. The full transcript of the chat is in this post, and it's meant to replicate the original chat with the two young girls.
Gizmodo was unable to replicate the Register's results, according to this follow-up post. As one Gizmodo commenter with the screen name Cajunguy points out, the slightly off-color background that appears behind the Santa bot's text can be a sign of image-editing tools being used.
Microsoft did confirm that the bot used inappropriate language in a message sent to Network World, and added that the company had discontinued the bot altogether after being unsatisfied with fixes it made to the agent's automated script. According to this AP story, Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said the bot could be fooled into repeating phrases or manipulated into saying things it wasn't supposed to.
As anyone who's chatted with an automated IM bot such as SmarterChild knows, that's feasible. AI-driven bots sometimes repeat the words you type into them, but it looks like the words "oral sex" were introduced entirely by the chat bot. Santa bot's ElfBots need to work on a better filter for something designed to be used by kids.
Social networking site Bebo, with a 36-million-strong member base centered primarily in the U.K., announced Tuesday that it has partnered with Microsoft on a new instant messaging initiative. The Windows Live Messenger service, formerly known as MSN Messenger, is now the fuel behind Bebo's new internal IMing operations.
Bebo users who have hooked their Windows Live usernames up to the service have an "IM Me" button on their profiles that they can use to communicate with other members in-browser if they're online, but Bebo's IM is also open to members without Windows Live Messenger. Essentially, the partnership integrates existing Windows Live accounts into Bebo and also provides a robust base for the Web-based chat interface.
A peek at Bebo's IMing service with the Windows Live logo button.
(Credit: Bebo)Don't think that this deal necessarily has broader implications in today's acquisition-happy digital media culture--the Microsoft partnership is strictly limited to Windows Live Messenger at this point. Bebo's internal search, after all, is powered by Yahoo, which has been talked up as a possible buyer for the independent social networking site.
Rival MySpace launched its instant messaging service earlier this summer, but has kept it separate from other IM clients like Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger, or AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Facebook, meanwhile, does not offer an internal IM service--but several third-party developers have created them for the Facebook Platform.
- StumbleUpon/eBay talks heat up. The Wall Street Journal is reporting (registration required) that a deal between eBay and StumbleUpon to acquire the social networking and content recommendation service is getting closer. No agreement has been made on price, but the rumored amount brings it somewhere near $75 million dollars. If acquired, StumbleUpon's content preference algorithms could be employed on eBay's auction listings to give eBay users a new way to get recommendations on things they might want to buy. (CNET News.com Blog)
- Last.fm launching video service. As reported by the Register in March, Last.fm will release a music video service this week. Last.fm users will be able to make their own sharable music video playlists, using high-quality video content from a number of legal independent content providers, with mainstream content from Warner and EMI on the way later this year. The new video service will still leverage Last.fm's music recommendation technology to introduce people to new music. (via ReadWriteWeb)
- Windows Live Messenger now on the Xbox 360. Owners of Microsoft's Xbox 360 can chat with others using Windows Live Messenger, now a part of the 360's system software. Live Messenger buddies show up alongside the regular friends list, and can live video chat via the Xbox 360's Live Vision camera. 360 users also get special status messages that show what game they're playing for anyone who sees them using the PC client. (via Crave)
(Credit:
Microsoft Corporation)
Microsoft is hard at work on a new consumer-targeted screen-sharing and collaboration tool, code-named Tahiti. Microsoft's landing page describes it as an "easy way to share documents and screen views with small groups of friends or coworkers; anytime, anywhere."
Each group member is assigned a mouse pointer and an editing color when working the group works together on Office documents. There's also a feature called 'handouts,' which is a storage space for documents or files you want to share with the group. The tool has no integrated voice or chat features, but Microsoft will likely add Windows Live Messenger support to future builds.
This is a step in the right direction for Microsoft, although it's a little confusing as the company already has three separate group collaboration applications: Net Meeting, Windows Meeting Space, and Groove Virtual Office. (We'll admit that Groove, priced at $200, isn't exactly casual and consumer-friendly).
There's also some competition brewing in this space on the Web side of things, as we saw at the Under the Radar conference last week. Competitors like Yugma (previous coverage), offer nearly all these features (in some cases more), and have Mac support, too.
There's no news on how much Tahiti will cost, or when it will be released.
[via ZDNet]
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