Hidden gems of the interweb

Microsoft

Microsoft’s Windows Live initiative is the company’s response to increasing competition from new entrants into the internet services arena such as YouTube and more established competitors like Google (although now one and the same). In an attempt to revitalise and re-establish itself as the market leader in consumer software, Microsoft has decided to ditch or ‘fade out’ MSN in favour of its latest brand, Windows Live.

The ‘Live’ part of the name is a way of associating the services with Microsoft’s other online offerings - Office Live and Xbox Live. Microsoft seems to be as committed to expanding social networking as any other company at the moment, and is churning out new services and applications by the hour (or so it feels).

Windows Live Local:
Formally named MSN Virtual Earth, Live Local is Microsoft’s head-on competitor to Google Maps, and provides mapping, satellite imagery and route planning into one rather nice looking package. You might be asking yourself ‘Why should I bother switching over to some rip-off of something I’m already comfortable with using?’. However, Live Local is much more than just an alternative to Google Maps, as it offers a whole lot more over its competitor.

As well as maps being generally more detailed when zoomed out, the directions function has many more options at hand, allowing users to choose either shortest or quickest routes and switch between miles and kilometres, as well as a more flexible overview map option. A further feature, available to US residents only at the moment, is the integration of the traffic.com system which pinpoints incidents (including accidents and construction) on the map and the areas affected by them, as well as the traffic’s speed.

Another feature which sets Live Local apart from the competition is its bird's eye view, which offers (where available) a 40° photographic perspective of landmarks and other areas. The Scratch pad is a floating toolbox which allows the user to add pushpins to favourite locations, group them, get directions between them and share them with other users. As well as pushpins, users can draw out whole areas on the maps and save them in the same way, as well as colouring them to open up a variety of potential uses for the service.

Overall, I personally find Live Local a vast improvement over what Google offers, and although the heavier interface may cause it to be slightly sluggish in comparison, Microsoft is really onto a winner and can only get better with this one. In the future I’d like to perhaps see this application used as much as possible in other Windows Live services, and I look forward to being able to test the Outlook plug-in when it is released for Outlook 2007.

Windows Live Expo:
If you thought tackling Google Maps head on was a bit ‘stupid’ of Microsoft, you may want to look away now. Windows Live Expo is the software giant’s answer to eBay, the world’s biggest auction house. Whilst it may seem nonsensical to try and compete with a company who are as synonymous with the term ‘online shopping’ as iPod is with ‘mp3 players’, there is some logic and appeal behind Microsoft’s offering.

Windows Live Expo isn’t technically an auction site, as it doesn’t offer any bidding functions and relies more on the community aspect of the system to sort out negotiations. However, the team did recently announce that Windows Live Expo will allow users to pay for items directly through Paypal - a bit of an unexpected announcement considering the payment service is owned by eBay.

Being that the UK version of Expo doesn’t include some of the newer features, I resorted to the US site to ‘test’ the system. As with practically any other Microsoft service, Live Expo allows you to use your Live ID (Passport) to create a user account, which helps when it comes to the settings in the various other services it integrates. As I mentioned before, the site doesn’t offer (at time of writing) any bidding functions, and is instead geared more towards offering on-the-spot purchasing and searching.

As well as allowing users to submit physical items for sale, Expo also offers the option of advertising services and personal. This allows freelance Web designers, bands or even painters to promote their business for free (the cost-free aspect being mirrored all over the site), as well as giving users the ability to advertise for these services, or just recommend them.