THE USER EXPERIENCE

	Contents
	Scale, by Thomas Claburn
	Content Management, by Thomas Claburn
	Security, by Charles Babcock
	Lightweight Development, by Charles Babcock
	The User Experience, by Aaron Ricadela
	Communities, by Aaron Ricadela
	Interactive Timeline: A Brief History Of Web 2.0

One of the biggest challenges of Web 2.0 is how to define and improve the user experience. Google showed how a clean, fast-loading page can make a difference in search. Other sites have cluttered, slow-loading home pages--think MySpace--but they're still successful. The challenge is to amaze and delight users, give them what they want, and surprise them with stuff they didn't know they wanted.

Few companies have spent as much time thinking about the online user experience as Microsoft. MSN, in the online content business since 1995, remains one of the Internet's most popular sites. But it's iTunes that people go to for music, not Urge or any of the other partnerships Microsoft engaged in with makers of iPod knock-offs. People "Google" for information, they don't "MSN" for it. And it's Google Maps and Google Earth that own the find-your-way franchise, not Microsoft's Virtual Earth. So far, at least, Microsoft's sites aren't a destination for the tastemakers of today's younger generation.

Recognizing its problems, Microsoft plans some renovations. The company will spend $500 million this fiscal year to develop Internet search engines and other software that can compete with products from Google and Yahoo. The price tag includes the cost of building new data center capacity to host upcoming consumer and commercial software. Its new Zune music player and music-shopping site are scheduled to launch next week. This week, Microsoft's online mapping software--a popular application that's closely tied to the success of its search engine--gets a major upgrade that casts its maps of the United States into eye-pleasing 3-D.

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If it's a hit, the new site could help Microsoft build a following on par with Google Earth, which has won rave reviews for its ability to let users zoom around the globe, soar over landmarks from the Grand Canyon to the Pyramids of Egypt, or swoop down to a neighborhood to find the nearest Starbucks.

What technology will Microsoft use to improve the Virtual Earth experience? Two acquisitions from earlier this year offer a clue. Microsoft bought Vexcel, which uses a technique called photogrammetry that can create 3-D images of cities and countries from aerial photographs. It also acquired Massive, a software company that lets sponsors inject ads into video games. Microsoft already licenses Virtual Earth APIs to Best Buy, Expedia, and others, like Google and Yahoo do for their mapping software. That gives partners a way to inject these applications with a dose of their own innovation--a decidedly Web 2.0 characteristic.

Google came out with a new version of Google Earth in September and has some new tricks, as well. They include descriptions of world landmarks from Discovery Networks and National Geographic, information on campgrounds and trails from the National Park Service, and the ability to record HDTV movies of users' flyover sessions. These may turn out to be the kinds of advances that thrill users, letting them see things they never could before. In this battle, fast, detailed, and fun count for a lot.

-- Aaron Ricadela