Live.com to see executive shuffle?

November 7, 2006 | Matt Marshall | Comments |

live.bmpMicrosoft has continued to struggle with its new Live.com branding for its online consumer site offerings.

A source has told VentureBeat there’s about to be a management reshuffling at Live.

We ran this by Microsoft, and a spokesperson declined comment. So we’ll chalk it up to rumor until we hear more.

Meanwhile, Microsoft said yesterday it would offer movies and episodes of television shows for downloading through its Xbox Live online service in the United States, starting Nov. 22. It’s about time, though, since Apple is doing already this.

Microsoft also launched Virtual Earth, which presents a three-dimensional view of 15 cities, and 100 more by summer of next year. The imagery is taken from airplanes from buildings, and provides angled, textured shots, compared to Google’s flat photographical view. Some say it is cooler than Google Earth.

Unlike Google, you can find it via search at MSN, via the “maps” tab.

You type in San Francisco, and you’re prompted with a box that lets you see the city in 3D, and then given the option to install (see below, and see example of San Jose at bottom).

Surprisingly, though, it has opened it up to for advertisers to promote their brands on virtual billboards throughout the city. See the Merc’s story here (free registration).

virtualearth.bmp

san jose.bmp

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Management shuffles ... they are like the childhood game 'musical chairs. The Marketing team will be the first to get shuffled as organization struggles to understand how best to gain traction among existing and potential 'Live.com' users.
  • its4us2think
    I dont know what world MS is in. When I try to use the live.com, it asks me to install some plugin which in turn wants to install .net, at the end it directs me to install the plugin for the office. Accidentally I installed office plugin, it started putting a "Ad" like signature at the end telling reciver to use the link for the directions to meeting location (I did not schedule the meeting outside the my office, nor did I expect some plugin to add it's lines into my meeting invite). If they want to compete with G, the better understand what makes the G sucessful. It is their simplicity in using their products. If MS wants to hang on to outdated activeX controls, god knows how they'll turn around