Microsoft Kills "Max"

According to Flexbeta, Microsoft has killed the "Max" skunkworks project. The Max photo organizer program was a project of Hillel Cooperman, one of the Vista UI guys, and was designed to show off the capabilities of the Windows Presentation Foundation (aka Avalon). If you're not familiar with the term "skunkworks", it denotes a project done for purely research purposes. It's not unusual for a skunkworks project to turn into an actual shipping product (a lot of Google's skunkworks project end up in the wild, thanks to their 20% policy), but what's unusual about this one is that Max was looking very good. It's telling that a version for Vista never reached beta, since WPF was a key feature of Vista. The excuses for why this never happened were pretty flimsy ... could it be that Max has actually become part of Windows Vista?

Probably not. Max was very ... VERY pretty, and would have made the rest of the OS look amateurish by comparison. Not that Vista doesn't look good, but Max was incredibly gorgeous, and was pretty much the only realization of the early demos Microsoft showed off of what the then "Longhorn" would be capable of. If all of Vista's micro-apps looked as good as Max, Vista could give the Mac purists something to consider. Anyway, all we know at this point is the cryptic message left behind by the Max team ... to keep checking ideas.live.com.

Google Coughs Up 1.65B For YouTube

So the deal is done. Google just bought YouTube. So the big question on everyone's minds is ... WHY?

They didn't do it for the technology. Google had their own video technology, and it was pretty good. They also didn't do it to put YouTube out of business, because the value that portal has now is pretty significant.

It appears on the surface, that Google did it to get those people using YouTube every day. My E-Marketing class focused a great deal on the exponential power of networks, and it's clear that Google will be able to take YouTube to at least their next doubling point if not further by combining the search giant's popularity with the 'Tube's.

At least, they can if they know to leave well enough alone. Add Google Checkout, and some video purchasing options. Integrate it with Blogger. Make it searchable. Then get the hell out of our way. If they can resist the urge to try to bring YouTube too much into the fold, they should make out pretty well.