Microsoft is so uncool. Everything they do is uncool. Hotmail is the pits, messenger is woeful. I used hotmail back in the 90s like everyone else. Used to have half a dozen or so people on messenger at any one time. Now it's a graveyard. Either M$ is getting uncool, or I am. Probably a bit of both.

Roll on the Google Phone and let the next generation of communication begin.

(I still code in .Net though, as it's damn lucrative...)

Sorry - but how low can the scum at Microsoft sink?

Get people to sign up to Hotmail and IM so MS can force adverts on you and force junk email down your throats (which try to persuade you to use live search). and they earn money from their advertisers and pass a pittance on to the charities concerned.

Isn't this along the lines of "Buy our product or we shoot the cute little puppy""?.. "Use our product or this poor starving child in the third world will die a slow agonising death"

Sick, sick sick

What a load of absolute bollocks. How do these people sleep at night?

Forget Live, Hotmail and Messenger because .Mac (MobileMe) and iChat are far superior.

Just like Microsoft did in that e-mail that told me to forward it to all my friends. I'm still waiting for that check from Bill, mind you.

Paris, because...umm...well, just because

And the use of a lower case letter I is driving me to apoplexy.

"How do these people sleep at night?"

They don't. It's all part of the Post-Gates Masterplan founded and forged by none other than Stevey-O Ballmer himself. In a nutshell, every Microsoft employee is kept awake to the legal limits - and, often this turns in to illegally lengthy working days - as there's no Bill to brainstorm all day.

It seems strange, but Microsoft was better with Bill than it is without.

Are you people seriously indignant that MS is giving money to charity? Does your hatred of MS really extend THAT far? I bet if google did the EXACT SAME THING it'd be wonderful and generous and the best thing ever.

Why doesn't M$ just make a straight donation instead of all this 'fake blog' nonsense.

It's like when a C List celeb releases a single for Charidee. They don't give a flying fcuk about the charity, they just want to use it as a springboard for their career. It's clumsy and obvious and crude, and so is M$

Live search sucks. MSN homepage sucks. (but their maps.live is very good. better than google maps for the UK as they have Birds Eye view. Very handy when searching for property.)

wa*ker prattle.

Pimping your business on the basis that 'X* money goes to charity' is a pretty poor advertising model and simply goes to show how large the profit margin already is. Look at Big Brother or Celebrity Big Brother they say the same thing, they take massive profit in premium rates and encourage to call more on the basis that some money goes to charity.

* being a normally pitiful amount

I would much prefer a structured and more useful gift to charities that can't be given to Chief Execs paychecks. See these below...

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/nintendo-starlight-starbright-deal-helping-to-raise-the-spirits-of-seriously-ill-children-by-installing-wii-consoles-in-north-american-hospitals

http://www.suerydercare.org/news.php/131/up_up_amp_away_bae_systems_and_sue_ryder_care_celebrate_new_partmership

At least the companies are not pretending that they are giving up cash when really all they are doing is trying to get traffic.

"Does your hatred of MS really extend THAT far?"

No - I have no problems with companies giving money to charity. I dislike it intensely when a company uses the premise of "Giving to Charity" as a way to sign up people to its services so it can flog more adverts and then crow about how many million people use its service and thus its better than anyone else's product.

When you start using Charities to boost your user base (which is what this is all about) then its sick.

Microsoft must have spent a lot of money with McCann to come up with this fake blogger shite. Why didn't they just turn round and give THAT money plus a chunk more directly to the charities.

I see the blog describes Nietzsche as 'a tool'.

Is this the official Microsoft line?

Wow, what are these products you talk of? I thought there was only Google Mail, GoogleTalk, Google and, er, Yahoo!

I use hotmail and live messenger ... am I going to be autmotically raising money for charity !??!?!

i wholeheartly object to anyone getting any money for things I do, by all means pay me to use hotmail and live messenger but charity ?! dont make me sick !!

I love the smell of astroturf in the morning.

After you with the bucket!

... running on SuSE Linux to talk to all IM users [Yahoo, AIM, and... (sigh...) yes, MSN users...] - so, as presumably Microsoft's Messenger servers don't discriminate between users' operating systems (a big assumption, I admit), does that mean I too can swell this "generous" (barf..!) donation to Charidee...???

I don't think there is anything to object to in Microsoft giving a portion of the advertising revenue earned by Hotmail to charity, and noting this as a reason to use Hotmail.

But I can see that encouraging young people to spam their friends about it might be considered objectionable. If one can sort out the confusion, it is possible to be indignant.

When you earn the amount of money these consultants make, it's really easy to be able to afford either

a) coke - so you don't have to bother or

b) the best sleeping pills a bent doc can provide.

Hell, they can probably afford to do both. we can only hope their excesses will catch up with them, and leave them like the vulture.

You guys are way off base - not only is he blogging and instant messaging nonstop to help some really great organizations, he's now doing it all over the Internet - check it out:

http://www.catsandbeer.com/internet/guest-blogger-parker-whittle-from-the-microsoft-im-initiative

LoL!

"Are you people seriously indignant that MS is giving money to charity? Does your hatred of MS really extend THAT far?"

In this case, yes. I would be the first to applaud Microsoft giving money to charity if it was actually a noble or altruistic effort instead of a ploy to get people hooked onto their products or to get people to hand over personal information. I also have a problem with corporations or individuals giving money to charity and then banging on their drum so that everybody knows about it.

You know what I do when I make a donation to a charity? I write a check (or fill in the form on their website). I don't tell anybody about it because I don't need to. I don't need the recognition. I give money because I want to help, not because I want to influence people's opinion of me.

"I bet if google did the EXACT SAME THING it'd be wonderful and generous and the best thing ever."

You don't know me very well. And judging from the comments recently on Google-related articles, more and more people are waking up to the fact that Google is not the savior, and is not the great company people used to think they were (and perhaps they truly were at one point, I couldn't say for certain).

Would have been an appropriate name if your surname was Longhorn :)

This is rather low though.

when will Microsoft snap out of the insane notion that all internet users are gullible 14 year old girls?

Paris cause..... shes a gullible 14 year old girl....

You can comment on their 'blog' ;-)

Everyone create a fake account with a name that makes it absolutely clear that it IS a fake account.

Empli Gratia: "Fake-MarketingShill" or "Fake-ForYetAnotherMSScam", et cetera.

Have that account connect via standard MS IM.

Create another account, also with an obviously fake name, and then connect it through a 3rd party IMC (say Pidgin, or Trillian).

Have one fake account "talk" to the other fake account, just as fast as the automated scripts can send messages back & forth to each other.

How well do you think MS' shampaign will work if all those disgusted with MS do this & rack up a couple TRILLION fake messages?

Go ahead MS, donate to those charities based on the number of accounts/messages sent.

All of them just as real as your shampaign, all of them JUST as useful, all of them just as warped, brain-dead, & ignorant of the real world.

MS, your services at Hotmail are abysmal & are synonymous with spammers World-wide.

Your IMC is filled with spammers who masquerade as friends, flooding our IM in-box with garbage.

There's a REASON Google is kicking your pathetic butt, and that's because THEY actually CARE how their image in the World reflects upon them as a Corporation.

Take your shampaign & cram it RIGHT back up the hole where you pulled it from in the first place.

The cat picture[1] gave me a faint whiff of icanhascheezburger.com. Cats are cool right? Kidz like teh lolcats don't they?

Maybe this is the new Nathan Barley? Then again maybe not, Nathan Barley had substance compared to this (and I mean the original TVGoHome not the TV show which I never saw).

[1] http://imtalkathon.com/archive/2008/07/04/is-it-just-me-or-are-all-cats-aloof.aspx

You can talk to all your "friends" no matter what messenger client they use now.. As Windows "Live" Messenger allows you to link up with people on Yahoo! messenger and AoL's Instant Messenger...

Same as Yahoo!'s one does..

Maybe the reason someone's messenger is quiet is because your "friends" have moved on and changed e-mail accounts or they can't get through the corporate firewall at work any more...

Anyway Come On MS you really think we are all that gullible?

It's a case of quick guys the "cool" one's just left what we gonna do we ain't "hip" no mores..

Mines the one with "I do it Old Skool - ICQ" on the back ...