Topic: RIP MSN - the messenger of my generation

[Pez]

RIP MSN - the messenger of my generation

This week I have been pondering the end of an era and come close to wiping away a tear over the loss of a staple of my teenage dramas.



The sword was already hanging over the head of Microsoft Messenger - or MSN Messenger as we all knew it - but I today received the email telling me 15 March was the date for transferring your contacts and moving on to the new(ish) pastures of Skype.

See, I was born in the mid-eighties. I am from the generation before the "digital native" who knew how to play with an iPad as soon as they fell out from the womb, but also slightly later than those who thought Pong was the height of sophistication.

Although my earliest tech memories tend to be of my sister's Amstrad or my own Nintendo consoles, my teenage years were dominated by the internet and the cries from my father to make sure I disconnected every 59 minutes so we could take advantage of the free hour deal Bulldog did at the time.

When I was in senior school, the craze rushed through the halls like football stickers did a few years before and everyone was trying to come up with the coolest email address to use on Hotmail. As the token 'goths' at school, we were trying to come up with the darkest - I remember a specific phase as 'Satanic Rose' - and once we all had the net at home, we would spend hours whining to each other over MSN about how the world hated us or how great the latest Cradle of Filth album was.

As I went through my teens, it continued to be a huge part of my life. Leaving for university meant I could still talk to friends back home, meeting new people at gigs used to end with "what's your MSN name?" and dull statistics lectures used to be cheered up with details of who had done what at the student union the night before. I even managed to meet my best friend on MSN years before we even met in person - sometimes I think he would have preferred we hadn't...

Then came Facebook. We all had MySpace already, but Facebook felt different and, even before the chat function was installed, my friends and acquaintances drifted away from MSN to the world of status updates and the infernal tagging of photos on nights out that should have remained between your nearest and dearest.

I never had the heart to delete my account and once in a blue moon I sign into Hotmail and glance at the chat bar to see which blasts from the past are online and still using MSN.

It is great Microsoft are offering the option of merging your contacts onto Skype and trying to keep the dream alive but I use Skype for work, keeping in contact with colleagues, companies and occasionally a friend or two when I am working abroad. It is not somewhere I see myself swapping anecdotes about someone's house party or, well, the latest Cradle of Filth record.

I have a feeling many MSN users of my generation will feel the same and stick with Facebook or even Twitter for these more frivolous conversations, rather than a video platform that, whilst it has caught the imagination of many, doesn't have the fun vibe and 'part of a community' feel that gave MSN such an impact over its competitors like ICQ or Yahoo Messenger.

Thanks MSN, you helped me survive school, make friends at uni, end relationships swiftly and wile away many a long night growing up in deepest, darkest suburbia. You will be missed.

RIP MSN MESSENGER


Orginal article: By Jennifer Scott on January 11, 2013 2:53 PM

[Pez]

End Of An Era: Windows Live Messenger To Be Retired, Users Transitioned To Skype



Confirming earlier reports, Microsoft officially announced today it would be retiring its Windows Live Messenger instant messaging service in favor of Skype. In a post on the Skype blog, Tony Bates, Microsoft President, Skype Division, explained that Windows Live Messenger would be retired for all users in the first quarter of 2013, with the only exception being mainland China.
 
Windows Live Messenger will live on in China, with no announced termination date for the service there. Microsoft notes that the move to migrate users from Windows Live Messenger to Skype began with the release of Skype 6.0 for Mac and Windows a fews weeks ago. In that version, users could begin to sign into Skype using a Microsoft account. After doing so, Messenger contacts are brought over as well. The Skype app available for Windows Surface/Windows 8 PCs forces this change as well – once you sign in, you’re prompted to merge your Microsoft account with your Skype account.



Today’s blog post walks users through the switchover process, and promises some “special offers later this year” for Messenger users making the switch. These will likely include things like free calling credits or other discounts toward some of Skype’s premium features.
 
Meanwhile, Brian Hall shares the same message about Messenger’s end on the final post of the Inside Windows Live blog. In it, he addressed Messenger’s 12-year history and users’ subsequent transition away from IM to SMS, as well as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. “Skype,” says Hall, “became the best way to have video and voice calls (in addition to also letting you IM).” Hall also teases some forthcoming Outlook.com integration, saying, “we will enable Skype to work better with Outlook.com than Messenger ever has too.”
 
For those who grew up in the pre-Facebook, pre-smartphone era, the news is bittersweet. Some of our first social activity online took place using instant messaging programs like AIM, ICQ and Windows Live, once known as MSN Messenger. But it makes sense to end operations, given that the world, as Microsoft acknowledges here, has largely moved on to other platforms and services.
 
Although no mention was made of it in either blog post, it’s likely that the Windows Live Messenger iOS application and Windows Live Messenge for Xbox will also be phased out in the future. An earlier report from The New York Times in April speculated that Skype for Xbox wouldn’t be ready in 2012, as Microsoft would focus on other priorities, like integrating Skype into its business product, Lync, for example.
 
Windows Live Messenger user numbers have been dwindling over the years. In 2010, it had 300 million users. Today, Microsoft is saying “millions” in its blog posts. (We’ve asked Microsoft if it would like to give us a solid number here. Update: Microsoft confirms that “100 million+” is correct.) Skype, meanwhile, has reached 280 million users, according to numbers sourced from Microsoft’s latest earnings report. Skype currently touts having 40 million users online at peak times.


Orginal article: Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

[devnullius]

amen

D

[stonecoldtx]

If you, like me, prefer to continue to use Messenger, there is a download available called, "Messenger Reviver 2"; just download and run it, and viola!  You can still use Messenger, at least for another year!

[devnullius]

Nice one, I did not know Messenger Reviver 2. One thing I do know: NO skype on my systems ;p

Karma,

devnullius

[bBbLaHhH]

Is there a reason why China can still run MSN messenger?  Is it because they have their own servers for msn messenger or it's because their internet is "different" than the rest of the world's

[Samker]

Is there a reason why China can still run MSN messenger?  Is it because they have their own servers for msn messenger or it's because their internet is "different" than the rest of the world's

I believe there is a (partial) answer for your question: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/743018.shtml

IMO, missing part is spying users from the Government... that "all" companies are ready to do in exchange for entry on the China market.