Over the past few days, I have been noticing gradual changes on different MSN sites. I guess now it has reached the tipping point for me to blog about it. The first and most noticeable change has been in the navigation menu on the top.
Whether you visit MSN entertainment or MSN money, the header will have a consistent look and feel. However entertainment.MSN.com will have "movies", "music" and "tv" on the top left showing up for easy navigation; Whereas, money.msn.com will show up with "autos", "sports", "tech" instead. The "more" tab, which is available on all properties,brings a pop up showing all the msn sites. I like this interface, and most importantly, I like the consistency. Besides these there has been consistent change to the menus and look and feel throughout the msn sites.
The latest and the greatest of them all has been the next release of msn video and an overhaul of msn soapbox. The msn video site looks totally cool. It no more uses the Windows media player skin but a much better looking and functional player. Here is the summary of changes from the soapbox blog:
Upgraded Features:
- Scalable Page. Thumbnails and other page items scale upon re-sizing the browser
- New Player.
- Integrated Playlists and Progessive download Indicators.
- Auto-Playlists and ability to share playlists.
- Improved Fullscreen Experience.
- Updated Embedded player
- Ability to sort video gallery
Soapbox Features
- Single Page browsing and viewing.
- Upload
- Unlimited Video Lengths.
- Simultaneously Upload and process Multiple Videos.
- Persistent Upload and Process indicator
Embed Player with Multiple Videos.
Soapbox Gadgets and Vista Sidebar Gadgets
High Quality Video Encoding.
Watch videos simultaneously with Friends using Messenger Activity Window.
However there are a couple of changes I don’t like about the next.video.msn.com is
- The new popup menus on the tabs. I liked the old soapbox style better
- The tags are not Web 2.0 style. Again the older soapbox style was better
Other than that, this is great work. One important thing to note according to the soapbox blog is that the current MSN video site is not going anywhere!
via liveside