MSN Messenger 7.0 Beta

I normally don't use MSN Messenger, but after hearing about their new beta version, I decided to have a look and see just how bad it really is. It did not fall short of my expectations. I went to the site to download it, and read about the new "features".

Winks: Express yourself with impact. Send animations with sound to really get some attention.
Nudge: Get the conversation going. Give your friends a Nudge.
Drag and Drop Backgrounds: See an image you like? Drag it to your MSN Messenger window to set it as your background.

Yeah, this looks really useful. With a spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye, I clicked the Download Now! button and was immediately whisked into a world worse than hell.

Go ahead, fill my PC with worthless crap.

After the install, MSN opened, and I finally got to see the client that's good enough for millions of idiots.

I find it difficult to look at this image without feeling nauseous and dizzy.

Amazing, isn't it? Notice the gigantic "MSN Today" window that's bigger than the client itself and contains nothing but vacuous pseudo-news, dotted with selections from MSN's vast emoticon set. Also notice the advertisement at the bottom of the client. It's built into it. It can't be turned off. How the hell do people use this thing? Check out the actual message window:

Fun fact: The actual text areas take up only 26% of this window.

Let's go over this. The window flashes when you receive a message. On the bottom, we've got buttons for pointless fonts, shitty emoticons, "Winks" because apparently ;-) just doesn't cut it anymore, two other stupid things that I don't even remember, and "Nudge". On the top, there's Invite for those nifty multiperson conversations, Send Files for convenient piracy, Webcam for camwhoring, Audio for pretending the internet is a telephone, Activities for something I didn't even bother to find out, and Games because surprise, this program is actually everything except an IM client.

The person who designed these should be drowned in yellow paint.

Upon attempting to close the window, I was confronted with a daunting decision:

hay dood im loggin this jus so u know (k) (w) (backflip)

Logging, the thing that Gaim and Trillian have been doing for years. Let's move on to the other tabs:

_lolsmurf_ is a master of emoticon art. ^_^

Yes, extra avatars and emoticon sets are such a critical part of communication on the internet, MSN felt the need to devote an entire tab to them. How else are their users going to communicate when they have trouble spelling three-letter words?

I really want this program handling my money.

While planning my night at the movies with sexihawtprincess696, I felt the need to see how my stocks were doing. Fortunately, MSN conveniently rates stocks on a 1 to 10 scale. Utilities are stable? That's news to me!

asl?

A whole tab for finding women with massive personality disorders over the internet, that is the greatest idea ever.

What about Shitty Formulaic Sports Title 2005?

And just when I thought it couldn't get any more asinine, there's a tab all about the Xbox. This is serious IM-related stuff, folks. For all the time they've spent on emoticons, e-dating, and video games, they seem to have neglected to fix one thing:

News flash: Don't use this program.

So let me get this straight: I can talk to people through this client, people with ridiculously long names. I can run webcams with it. I can play games and use voice chat. I can download emoticons and avatars, check my stocks, meet crazy women, and read about the latest Xbox games. But I can't even read the news. This is spectacular.

Just fly this shitty excuse for a program back to Redmond.

Y!M does this too. Is it really that important, when someone signs on, to necessitate a popup? But that's not important right now. What's really important is GAS PRICES. And TRAFFIC FORECASTS.

You are in a driveway north of the house. The SUV strikes! You die.

This is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT STUFF, FOLKS. I hear enough bitching about gas prices off the internet. Oh no, it's 5 cents more! Not my precious nickels! Shut the fuck up or refine your own oil, cheapskates.

What you are about to see may shock or disturb you. You might want to have any children leave the room.

Yes, MSN, I really need more emoticons.

No, your eyes do not deceive you. It appears that Microsoft is attempting to create a new hieroglyphic language for internet communication. Our crack team of linguists and cryptographers is working hard trying to decipher this new language, but we've had no luck so far.

At this point, I was pretty pissed at this massive shambling pile of wreckage. I wanted to give them a piece of my mind. Alas, my efforts were in vain. I'm not going to allow such a miserable failure on my PC. This is over.

It honestly seems like the people who made MSN Messenger had only one goal in mind: To pack every window with as many worthless, pointless, useless features as possible. Nothing else could explain this. If you want a program that will do your taxes, buy your groceries, cure cancer, and find the nearest pinata shops in your area while flashing your preferred colors of the rainbow in synchrony with the phase of the moon, then by all means, use MSN. But if you actually want to talk to people, use Gaim.

Furthermore, it seems this cretinous program has put some sort of curse on my computer. In one day, my cable connection died repeatedly, my scanner completely stopped working, and Windows bluescreened twice, which it never does. Great job, MSN!