There’s a new trick that tech companies are using to get a little positive press. It’s simple: Just make an announcement that includes the words “data portability” and “social networks” and you’ll probably get an explosion of coverage. Today, for example, Microsoft is announcing that five social networks are going to start using its official contact importer from Windows Live Messenger.
Yes, today, from Facebook (pictured, above) or Bebo, you can search and invite friends to join either site, by perusing your list of Windows Live Messenger contacts. Microsoft will also be working with LinkedIn, Hi5 and Tagged in the coming months.
So literally, Microsoft is making your IM contacts portable, but this is nothing earth-shattering by any means, even though the company used the term “data portability” in its press release — AOL’s AIM, Yahoo’s Messenger, Google’s Gtalk, among others, have already offered this same service for years.
The other angle to this story is that Microsoft is using this announcement to advertise its Windows Live Messenger service, where you can find friends within social networks and invite them to chat. Two notes on that.
One is that social networks already have their own IM efforts. Facebook is working on its own chat service that lives within its site. Same with Bebo, which is working on integrating its new parent AOL’s AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) service. I’m not sure any of these users will want to go to Microsoft’s service instead.
The other note is that this announcement may actually explain rumors from a couple months ago about Microsoft strong-arming any startup that tried to extract its chat service’s data without asking. Since last summer, Microsoft has been sending cease-and-desist letters to these startups, Fortune’s Josh Quitter reported. Those letters were followed by meetings between the startups and Microsoft reps, where Microsoft would demand that its contact importer be featured in the most prominent location. If the startups “wanted to use the other IM services, it must pay Microsoft 25 cents a user per year for a site license,” the report said, a fee that would be “discounted 100 percent” if they used Messenger exclusively.
So far, neither Facebook nor Bebo appear to be giving Microsoft top billing, and it’s hard to imagine either one paying even Microsoft 25 cents per user per year. Especially now that Microsoft’s data is portable.
Tags: co: bebo, co:Facebook, co:microsoft4 Comments
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adam said:
Why even write about this? If its not a “big deal” why make a post about this news release. My question to the author and Venturebeat in general…are you enjoying the lunches and dinners the PR teams from FB and others provide? It seems as if you continuously write about the same companies…
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Eric Eldon said:
thanks, adam.
sadly, i find too many of those lunches to be a waste of time ;)
seriously, i think the relevancy of the story stands for itself. i’m not going to argue about it with you unless you get more specific
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christoph said:
eric,i think you missed the point. the real walled-gardens here are the social networks….just try to export your friends list from anyone of them. this is a start I think, and a good sign for small social networking startups that would love to bootstrap their user base off of Facebook.
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Eric Eldon said:
christoph, i completely understand your point, and it’s not what microsoft announced. instead, microsoft used the terminology that people wanted to hear about “data portability” in order to promote a catch-up play against other IM services. i’m not willing to construe that action to mean a far more serious commitment to, in some form, share user data
