Microsoft to Release ’threedegrees,’ A Program Created By ’NetGen’ for Socializing; Relies on Peer-to-Peer Technology

[BigBlueBall News]

PRNewswire
February 16, 2003

Company Negotiated with Music Industry to Allow Sharing of Songs Over the Internet

NEW YORK, Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft will break tradition next week when it unveils its first product for the aged 13-24 crowd, the "NetGen." The program, called threedegrees, is an online application that will allow young people to express their social graces, and sometimes disgraces, among friends, reports Senior Editor Steven Levy in the current issue of Newsweek. Levy, with an exclusive first look at the program, reports that it’s a surprising departure from Microsoft: the company that relentlessly focused on productivity has now produced an anti-productivity tool, constantly interrupting you and urging you to waste time with your friends.

The visionary behind the program is Tammy Savage, a 33-year-old manager in business development who told a meeting of Microsoft brass that if the company wanted to be relevant in the future, it had to adjust to NetGen, a crowd that’s "on instant messenger before their morning coffee," even if it meant producing software that the middle-aged guys in the room didn’t care for, Levy reports in the February 24 issue of Newsweek. Savage knew the only way to produce the software would be to hire a NetGen team straight out of college.

Levy explains how the program works: You invite friends to form a posse of up to 10 participants. Representing the group on your desktop will be a colorful image, either one from a set provided by the software or something one of the group has produced. If you’re online, you give your friends a holler simply by sending the equivalent of an instant message and everyone in the group will see it. If you want to send a digital photo, you simply drag it over the icon and it shows up on everyone’s computer. Then there are "winks." These are small animations that you trigger to run on everyone’s screen.

Also, because threedegrees relies on the cutting edge peer-to-peer technology -- where people send information to each other directly, without having to access sometimes overburdened servers -- the project will be a great testbed for future Microsoft P2P products. It’s also a fascinating experiment in how music can be legally shared over the Internet. After much negotiation, the labels have OK’d musicmix, once Microsoft agreed to somewhat hobble its features, Levy reports. (Playlists have a maximum of 60 tunes, and the songs won’t play unless the original owner is participating).