“Microsoft has publicly acknowledged similar interests in tying its MSN Music online store into MSN Messenger. In a press conference last month, MSN’s corporate vice president Yusuf Mehdi described a scenario in which two IM chatters could listen to each other’s playlists and then buy the songs if they wished.
Without any fanfare, MSN has already begun toying with playlist sharing. The latest MSN Messenger, version 6.2, contains a link to a test application called ThreeDegrees. Among other features, the software lets a person share a playlist with other members in a private group.
Microsoft’s Mehdi said eventual MSN Music features on IM will stem from ThreeDegrees development. A Microsoft representative declined to comment further on music integration in Messenger, but offered a glimpse of how ThreeDegrees is being used.
‘It’s a research product to test IM features,’ the representative said.”
Nice speculation in this article; combing IM communities and music downloads. This is obviously an advantage Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL have over Apple.
If you haven’t done so you should checkout ThreeDegrees (has nothing to do with the singers). This application shines a new light on communities and what’s driving younger people (yes I am an old man).
