Ross: Hey - wouldn't it be cool to be able to make it easy for our customers to share this data with their MSN Messenger contacts?
Developers: Yah, that would be cool.
Ross: Microsoft has this cool API that we can use and some pretty sweet controls that mean we don't even have to worry about UI!
Developers: Awesome! Yay Microsoft!
So I go to the website where Microsoft has this all laid out and I notice that they have a sample app on the page that lets me "view your Windows Live Messenger contacts' online status and easily share what you're viewing with them, sign in with your Windows Live ID."
"Bingo!" I thinks to myself. "I can use this to send the developers a link to this page so they can see the user experience first hand. Yay Microsoft!"
So click the link and fill in the identity information it asks for, and I get this great message as a response:
Be-yoo-ti-ful! That instills a *ton* of confidence in me, I am totally stoked in integrate this into my app now.
Two words Microsoft: Epic Fail.
And people wonder why Microsoft is continually playing catchup in the online space.
