Another entrant into the RSS reader market, from Microsoft – Microsoft Max.
It’s actually a tool primarily intended for photo sharing:
[…] Max lets you make beautiful photo slideshows to share with your family and friends. You can also use the newsreader to keep up with the latest news updates from around the world.
The pics in the screenshot gallery show a very nice-looking application indeed.
Will I try it? Probably not, or at least not until a final release comes out. This is a beta and it requires .NET Framework 3.0 RC1 (ie, pre release) installed. I have some apps on my PC that need .NET Framework version 2 which I have installed and I don’t know if 3 RC1 will mess up how those apps work. Erring on the side of caution, therefore.
Plus I’m happy with using tools like Flickr for photo sharing and FeedDemon for my RSS reader. So this isn’t compelling enough for me for either use.
Good review at TechCrunch. And check out the 75+ comments and trackbacks there.
Max’ full name is Microsoft Codename Max, a name that does not trip off the tongue lightly. What is it with Microsoft and poor product naming choices? Don’t even think about Bob.
3 responses to “Max mixes photos and RSS”
I’m not sure what they’re trying to do really. The picture bit is reminiscent of Picasa. A had a brief go with the RSS reader part, but it didn’t seem as smart or easy as bloglines or google reader.
One thought I had, Martyn, was that Max could be a great feature as a built-in part of Windows Vista, ie, not as a separate application.
I wonder…
Good point (slaps forehead). Used to be that we didn’t expect the email or the browser to be built-in.
By the way I’ve been doing some research on .NET 3.0, and it seems that MS used to call this WinFX, so it’s actually a layer that sits on .NET 2.0. Shouldn’t affect any existing .NET apps having a WinFX layer installed on your PC.