Thursday, October 18, 2007

Microsoft has no friggin clue!

As I was going through my feeds this morning, I found interest in Mashable’s drop regarding Microsoft’s new web development tool called Popfly. Popfly is supposed to be a tool that allows non-technical folks a way to build web content within their social circles. It also allows users the option to pull in their Facebook, Digg, and Twitter content.

My curiosity peaked because any platform like this is a good idea as social networking continues to pave new roads. To get a better idea of the offering I went to Popfly to take a look and ultimately, to try out. I’ve done this with YahooPipes, Aptana, Flex, AdobeAir and many other web dev technologies, Flex so far is my favorite.

Well if you open the Popfly link, you’ll see exactly why Microsoft has no friggin clue. The homepage has a splash with the Popfly name and as you can see in the pic above, it also has that damn “Sign In” button that I have come to hate. Microsoft Passport is waste at it’s best because it doesn’t work. After reviewing the site, team and examples, I battled my hesitancy to click the Sign In button because I wanted to see what Popfly really looked like. Well, after I clicked through, I didn’t get any better understanding because I ended up at a fill in your information page. Like I want to sign up in order to preview MSFT’s newest offering. Am I the only one who sees the pain in this approach?

MSFT is trying to play catch up with everyone when it comes to social media and next generation web technologies. For their newest product, that is supposed to show how innovative they are, they deliver us the same old horrible approach which completely turned my interest off. Now as a potential user, tester, advocate, I’m left with no idea what Popfly is really like. They lost my eyeballs at “HELLO”.

Getting people to play and evaluate your new product should be much easier than this.

Cmon guys, get a clue!

5tacos

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As newer web technologies are developed their business model becomes more and more of a problem.

5Tacos, nice job on the start. Looking forward to more.

BTW, are you going to the TC Meet up?

John - Boston