MSN ClipClub Marries Online Videos with Social Networking

Microsoft has married Online videos with social networking in a new project from MSN Germany. MSN ClipClub, currently in Beta stage, is designed not only to permit users to view and share videos and comments, but also to connect with friends over the content through Windows Live Messenger. The entire MSN ClipClub Beta experience is in fact dictated by Silverlight and the Windows Live Messenger library the website integrates in order to allow them to communicate with each other. ClipClub is available exclusively through MSN Germany, and localized only for this specific market, with Microsoft failing to provide an English version, or at least a translated variant of the user interface.

“MSN Germany has built an application called ClipClub that does a great job of integrating social functionality into an experience for browsing videos. The site uses both Silverlight and the Messenger Library to achieve a polished experience,” Steve Gordon, Microsoft lead software design engineer, revealed. “You can not only view videos, but mark videos as favorites and view your buddies’ favorite videos. There is also an integrated chat gadget that allows you to not only chat, but also easily send links to videos to your buddies.”

Last week, Microsoft announced an important step designed to unite the code bases of all the versions of its Windows Live Messenger libraries. By the end of this week, the Redmond company will have moved Windows Live Messenger Library v2.0 to version 2.5. In the future, the software giant also plans to transition version 1.0 of the Windows Live Messenger Library to version 2.5.

Gordon provided a translation of the UI of ClipClub, in order to make it easy for English speaking users to navigate the website and just get an idea of what Silverlight and Windows Live Messenger can offer together. “The site is in German, so for those of you who may have trouble navigating around, here's a glossary: Anmelden/Abmelden – login/logout. Main Menu on left and right: MSN Video Freunde – shows all the friends for whom the currently playing video is in their favorites; Meist Gesehen – most viewed; Gesehen von freunden – seen by your friends; best bewertung – best rated; Aktuell – most recent; Vollbild – full screen mode; Zuruck – Back. These show up in the chat experience: Abschicken – Send; Loschen – Clear. These show up in the Genre sub-menu: Unterhaltung – Entertainment; and Nachrichten – News.”