The Perils of Messenger

I used to used MSN messenger all the time about two years ago. ALL THE TIME! Thankfully my transition to Google talk has been painless, and now I'm addicted to social networking rather than instant messaging. I was initially worried about starting over with my contacts list, but thankfully most of my friends are technically minded and saw the benefit in moving over too.

I do however have a couple of friends who haven't migrated. Friends who are stuck in a 90s time warp and probably enjoy listening to Brit Pop and wearing Doc Martin boots while using this vintageIM client. They just don't understand why they should change. They become offended when I call them Luddites and get confused when I attack Messenger from a software engineering orUI design perspective. So for their benefit I present my top five annoyances of MSN Messenger:

(5) The Protocol
Have you ever blocked someone or just closed the window when someone tries to start a conversation with you? How rude! The Messenger protocol broadcasts that kind of information and other clients that have reversed engineered the the Messenger protocol have the ability to decypher it. I used to use an MSN client on Linux that had the ability to do this. Quiet eye opening when you're chasing down someone in your group project who doesn't want to reveal how little work they've done.

(4) Advertising
It's free software and Microsoft want some return on their investment. But OMG! Way to ram it down our throats guys!!

(3) Cluttered interface
MSN provides a clickable "Send" button for you to use instread of just pressing Enter. It also provides a "Search" button so you can type in an MSN Search query directly into the message field. USEFUL! The UI designers really need to make some priority calls about what is included.

(2) Use of user selected nick names
"http://news.bbc.co... has just signed in" INFORMATIVE! Yes you can hack about, install extensions etc, but why not release something that is useful by default? Messenger certainly got better when it introduced both name and personal message fields, but this is often abused and is particularly distracting when trying to have a conversation with someone who has a handle that spans more than a line of text (especially if it includes smileys).

(1) Feature Bloat

"I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don’t want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying NO to all but the most crucial features." - Steve Jobs talking about innovation in iTunes

MSN messenger has gone waaaay over the top with feature bloat. Winks? Great - someone is illustrating their point by sending me a cheesy flash animation. Nudges? FFS! I'm having conversations with three other people, wait your fucking turn! The first time I received a nudge I calmly closed downMSN and didn't open it again for six months.



Rant over.