Tom Purves – Product Management, Fintech & AI

Monocrom setting up to perform for Toronto

Had the enormous pleasure of meeting up with Yohanes and the crew from Monochrom last night (official site, wikipedia) the manic genius art-interventionist collective from Vienna. Thanks to Fran (a sometime collaborator herself) for the tipoff that they were in town.

There’s still time to catch them in Montreal later this month if that’s were you are.

monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science and political activism.

” [Monochrom has] established a 1 baud semaphore line through the streets of San Francisco, started an illegal space race through Los Angeles, buried people alive in Vancouver, and cracked the hierarchies of the art system with The Thomann Project. In Austria they ate blood sausages made from their own blood in order to criticize the grotesque neoliberal formation of the world economy. Sometimes they compose melancholic pop songs about dying media and hosted the first annual and inevitably leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics.”

The show it’s self consisted mostly of Johanes regaling us with stories of their past projects each making slightly less sense than the one before. accompanied by Johanes dancing and belting out a few songs, a few odes and a general stream of techno-politico-art mashups of varying degrees of piercing absurdity. recommended.

Oh and I’ve been made an official citizen of Zombia. Let me know if you’d like a zombie passport as well, I’ve got all the paperwork. “Just one thing you should keep in mind: once a zombie always a zombie. There’s no turning back. Unless maybe you happen to find a way. Again, that is none of our business either. Zombie or not to be — this is no question!”

Phil Holden of Microsoft.

So Microsoft is launching all this new “Windows Live” stuff. All this new all new stuff. new! new! beta! beta! new! beta! oh my. The list is pages long. Awakening from a little power nap having dozed, oops, a little (just a year or 3) longer than intended, the great vole of software is up with a start. oh my! the consumer internet has left us down the tracks. quick! somebody do everything!

“Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” – the inimitable Stephen Leacock

And thus we have Windows Live. Windows Live Everything.

Q: Anything really knock-your-socks-off-innovative thus far? can’t say anything jumped out at me.

Q: Is it bad we have more competition for all manner of Web services? of course not, as consumer one can’t complain about more options. Interoperability (open api’s, rss, import, export, standards etc.) would be greatly appreciated though. (Microsoft will you ever listen?)

Q: Is the brand from name to execution a little ambitious (to put it charitably) as to what they’re trying to wrap their arms around all in one bite (to muddle metaphors)?
Hmm, No doubt. Many of the apps do certainly have a true beta feel about them from teething performance issues to certain UI oddities. But then, before Google hijacked the idea, this is what Beta’s are for.

Q: Not worse than MSN? oh god yes, and for now cleaner and less ad strewn – at least until ms channel partners (sympatico in canada) get their paws on this stuff.

link

More pictures here

fact of the day: between hotmail and messenger services, MS has 300 Million users.

The great vole of software reached out to me this week with an invitation as well to no doubt a few more of the usual local suspects and most of whom no-doubt rather more usual than me. Reaching out to bloggers they are, luring us with the promise of free drink or two at the gladstone and promises of a few peeks or two under the kimono [komodo -ed?] of what they’ve been busy with in Redmont.

To be honest I don’t spend much of my day thinking of Microsoft’s web technologies and related. Though were I were thinking much about them I would remember thinking this the other day:

About a week ago, rumors surfaced that apple is planning a competitor to google maps, and they’re calling it… “Maps”

Wow what a clear and simple brand name. I know if I was Joe/Jane consumer there would be roughly zero ambiguity in my mind about what that program does. If the icon says “Maps” on it, I pretty much know where to go if I’m looking for maps in my operating system or online service.

To understand why this just kills me, you have to realize a second thing. Microsoft also has recently launched a competitor to Google maps. And what do they call this brilliant service… wait for it… “Windows Live Local”

Windows Live Local. What the hell does that mean? Sounds like some kind of networking application to connect my operating system’s to, like, other things in the immediate vicinity? – rather than a global Web-based mapping service. yowza.

The irony of course is that Microsoft’s service, horrifically disingenuous name notwithstanding, is actually pretty good. You can do very subtle things like ad annotated pushpins to a map (x marks the spot etc.) and mail those to a friend, something I wish you could do (easily) with Google maps. And it’s pretty looking.

But “windows live” branding (not to mention the word local) kills me. The brand itself seems like a desperate attempt to create in the mind of consumers the idea that Windows Itself has something to do with the Internets. Reminds me of the days would Intel would try and suggest it’s newest cpu would make your internet faster. In Microsoft’s case though, this internet=windows philosophy seems to be deeply ingrained in their current strategy. I believe Microsoft is trying to take the Internet out of the browser. This philosophy of course flies in the face of every trend in the software industry of the last several years where one by one every major application has been sucked in to the browser. The core office applications being the last great holdouts (and now challenged by the likes of Google spreadsheets, calendar and writely etc.)

From what I’m hearing so far from those in the know, Visata and Office 12 is all about the Empire strikes back. Rich and creamy thick clients with all the goodness of rss, search and online collaboration but without that flaky browser shell. Interesting. Will this be the revenge of the thick client or Office’s last stand? next year will tell.

In the meantime, pay no attention to the Firefox in the corner

The Internet is now on Windows, And It’s Live! …and, er… Local