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Originally posted by The Blasphemer, msn messenger blog
MSN Messenger as a paid service?
March 31st, 2005 by TheBlasphemer

Today I got word of some microsoft employees that the company is not satisfied with the current profit-margin.
To make more profit, microsoft will be taking out a whole lot of functionality from Messenger, and only enable this on paid accounts.
Some of the features that are rumoured to disappear are the ability to choose your own display-picture, the ability to place people in seperate groups, filetransfer (although the free client will most likely be able to ACCEPT file-transfers), and last but not least animated emoticons in Messenger 7 will also be a paid-only feature.
As of now, I am not sure if it will be possible to bypass the paying, much like we did with bluemountain, but since this would be a lot of server-side, I fear that it will not, and the microsoft employees I have talked to stressed the fact that Microsoft is actually trying to secure MSN Messenger nowadays (anyone remember the test-phases?).
Patchou has also announced that if MSN Messenger would ever become paid, he will most certainly drop the Messenger Plus! project and try his luck on either Yahoo Messenger or AOL Instant Messenger, we think that those are the best available surrogates if microsoft will push it this far.

I currently do not have time to investigate more, since I will have to attend school in just a little while,
however when I get back I will try to get in touch with some other, higher placed, Microsoft employees for their view on the matter…

Bye,
TB

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Originally posted by ~INVASION~

i really hope this wont be the case, if this is true i wont be able to do anything since i hjave no buddys on other programs, i really hope they reconsider

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true but still msn messenger is better then all of them and i dont hink isd be able to part from it. But if it does and patchou moves to another then ill prolly follow him

To cut off something as basic as file transfers, and even display pictures, would be a plain bad move. People already know display pictures, they've had them for free for more than a year, if they suddenly end having them they will move them and their contacts to other system that doesn't make features paid randomly.

MS wants to make money from Messenger (completely understandable, of course, it's their product and they're free to do anything with it) -- but I see this as more of a rumor than anything remotely possible. Features like winks or animated display pictures and custom emoticons, yeah, but FILE TRANSFERS? Only time will tell, but (no offense TB) it seems just like a FUD article. Of course, I don't have the sources you may have so I could be wrong... but that's what it sounds about.

I just hope I'm right

And of course, if this was supposed to be an April Fools joke, they better fix that WordPress installation to display the correct date

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Originally posted by ~INVASION~
true but still msn messenger is better then all of them and i dont hink isd be able to part from it. But if it does and patchou moves to another then ill prolly follow him

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There's one thing on my mind after I read the post that MSN would lose more money if they do that

And I probably follow Patchou, like ~INVASION~

Thats actually a scary thought...alot of people think it'll stay free...but i never thought it would stay free

Will Msn Stay Free

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Originally posted by Third Dimension
Thats actually a scary thought...alot of people think it'll stay free...but i never thought it would stay free

Will Msn Stay Free

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If MS do this, it will be the stupidest marketing move ever made, it'll be ok for a short while but what will happen is straightforward.

I'll move to whatever client most of my friends move to, which will most likely be AIM or Yahoo, I'm pretty sure everyone in my school would move to AIM, a few people will pay for MSN, but give up when there's virtually no one to talk to...MSN will die a slow death with the bulk of features missing. It's not like MSN have cornered the IM market, it's a free for all, and there's lots of free stuff out there...MSN is the big client used in my area, but it could easily change if a load of people get tired of the "You must pay for this feature" message.

It could be a april fool since TB lives in the GMT+1 timzone which now is under DST, and that means he is like 8 hours beyond the servertime. But i dont know...

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Originally posted by A. Madsen
It could be a april fool since TB lives in the GMT+1 timzone which now is under DST, and that means he is like 8 hours beyond the servertime. But i dont know...

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Good reason to Use Open Source , who really needs all these New Features anyway?.. i dont.. can get away with MSN messenger file transfers/Display Pics. but i'd jsut use AIM/ICQ/Yahoo , but this move doesnt suprise me  microsoft doing this.. look at the 2 MSN Messenger 7 clients they got.. the 7.0.0732 is prolly gonna be the Paid service one.. the Public beta of 7 will be the Basic prolly.

Today's date: 1st April 2005.

tis  pretty mean joke if it is a Joke, but i somewhat dont think it could be.

If msn messenger becomes a paid service I will most likely move to yahoo messenger.

lol that will neveer happen it is april fools you know

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Originally posted by mad_onion

lol that will neveer happen it is april fools you know

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umm wtf

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Originally posted by http://msnblog.stuffplug.com

Exclusive: MSN Messenger 7 on CD-ROM?
April 1st, 2005 by jon

As a follow-up to TheBlasphemer’s post earlier about MSN Messenger going as a pay-only service it appears that MSN will be offering a downloadable MSN Messenger client from their website, known as MSN Messenger 7 Standard, whilst to pay for extra functionality, users will be expected to purchase a boxed edition of the messenger client known as MSN Messenger 7 Premium that can be purchased by mail-order directly from Microsoft from certain countries and will be available for purchase from computer stores worldwide. There will also be MSN Messenger 7 System targeted at corporate users who need to use the Live Communication Server connection facility.

Although prices have not yet been confirmed, from an internal e-mail that has been leaked by Microsoft to the internet within the last couple of hours, it appears that MSN Messenger 7 Premium will retail at around £19.99 in the UK with users being eligible for all Version 7 updates before expecting to pay for an upgrade to the inevitable MSN Messenger 8. The e-mail also indicates that MSN Messenger 7 Permium will adopt the controversial product activation such as that used by Windows and Office. MSN Messenger 7 Premium is scheduled to be RTM (released to manufacturers) by March 1st and should be in shops mid-March. Microsoft were keen to point out to users that although they do not have to upgrade, many features they are used to will only be made available to Premium users and that the Standard edition will still be made available for download from their website, though only to users who agree to use the “Genuine Advantage” scheme which is currently being tested by Microsoft at their download site to ensure that users are using a legal copy of Windows.

On a side note, bewildered IRC users have already been discussing exactly why Microsoft find it necessary to use an entire CD-ROM for a 7mb application, although it has been rumoured that Microsoft may add around 50mb of complementary extras for Premium users.

We are currently trying to get hold of some rumoured box-shots that have been circulating on the internet and hope to post them when they become available! Stay tuned!

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dunno if i'd buy it.. stik to the free version . i dont need all that other crap like winks an Nudges, trillian would do me fine i think .

The more and more this goes on, I've changed my mind. If the developers have heard about these plans, I doubt it would be only TB who would have heard about it. Until I hear something more offical, I'm just going to ignore this...

ask a computer shop to see if this is true ..they'd surely know

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Originally posted by Anubis
Until I hear something more offical, I'm just going to ignore this...

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Originally posted by Demz
ask a computer shop to see if this is true ..they'd surely know

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well givre it time an im sure it'll be leaked on neowin.net or wherever soon enough if it is true, but time will tell if it is true or not

Bah! April Fools... I've seen this exact joke before, just with a different program.

Precisely.
Check mess.be and Neowin... I bet neither carry this 'story'.
And I'll just draw everyone's attention to the current date:
1st April

When I read about I almost had a heart attack.  This better not become paid or there will be a revolt.  But if it's true will Windows Messenger be paid to?

if msn is windows messenger prolly would be to but like this says with limited functions. i dont see why windows comes with windows messenger anymore anyway because some of it doesnt even work ie the email checking says it needs ANOTHER update after you update it at first, and then links to a page that says that ms no longer supports it...

As I said before on this thread, it was a sad try at an April Fools joke... the original article being dated March 31st

If it was a joke I wanna hear it from the orginal poster

Common sense, why would they want to charge for it when someone else is lettin you use the same stuff freely..

if they do charge and if you do pay for it, it will be like payin for www.google.com so u can search.

me and jon had a chuckle earlyer

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Originally posted by raceprouk

quote:

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Originally posted by A. Madsen
It could be a april fool since TB lives in the GMT+1 timzone which now is under DST, and that means he is like 8 hours beyond the servertime. But i dont know...

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Glad to see someone else has noticed the date.

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Originally posted by Guido
As I said before on this thread, it was a sad try at an April Fools joke... the original article being dated March 31st

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Surprise, surprise

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Take a deep breath…
April 1st, 2005 by TheBlasphemer

APRIL’S FOOL!
Got you
Yes, indeed, there are no rumours, at all, about MSN Messenger dropping features to make them exclusive to “premium” users
Some of you did find out, however to keep up the joke I put everything with “fool” and “april” on the moderation list
However, there where also a lot of users whom I had almost caused a heart-attack, one of which being wtbw
Not only users fell for it though, the dutch website messbase even copied it (without source though :/, and they already deleted it)

Anyway, take a deep breath, MSN will still remain a free service, nothing to worry about

Bye TB

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lmao good one.............u done me bad!

I had my msn name as "MSN Messenger Paid Service?!?! Microsoft Are a bunch of tossers!"

lmao!

i totally forgot it woz april fools day, grrrrr lol

nice

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Originally posted by A. Madsen

quote:

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Originally posted by A. Madsen
It could be a april fool since TB lives in the GMT+1 timzone which now is under DST, and that means he is like 8 hours beyond the servertime. But i dont know...

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IT BETTER BE! i mean that would just suck! if all these options were taken away from us mann! I think i would maybe change instant messaging client, don't y'all?

EDIT : Surprise, surprise


quote:
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Take a deep breath…
April 1st, 2005 by TheBlasphemer

APRIL’S FOOL!
Got you
Yes, indeed, there are no rumours, at all, about MSN Messenger dropping features to make them exclusive to “premium” users
Some of you did find out, however to keep up the joke I put everything with “fool” and “april” on the moderation list
However, there where also a lot of users whom I had almost caused a heart-attack, one of which being wtbw
Not only users fell for it though, the dutch website messbase even copied it (without source though :/, and they already deleted it)

Anyway, take a deep breath, MSN will still remain a free service, nothing to worry about

Bye TB


--- Thats nothing to joke about...!!!

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Stigmata fell for it , i'm just lucky that i didn't see the post until TB's new post about it being fake was posted

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Originally posted by Chestah
Stigmata fell for it , i'm just lucky that i didn't see the post until TB's new post about it being fake was posted

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an ufell for it,

* Eljay closes AIM download page

All I can say is...
Told You So!!!

* user35870 removes yahoo messenger

im glad its not gonna be paid service

good one