MSN just released a beta of MSN Messenger 7. I got it ASAP, installed and rebooted. I was really hopeful that there'd be some nice new features. Instead, I found that the MSN folks decided to take all the lameness of Yahoo messenger, and up it a notch.

First, the actually cool stuff, to get it out of the way:
  More ink support. Now there are tabs when you send a message, switching between “Handwrite” and “Type”. I don't use ink, so not that cool. Can't find out how to disable it. So it just adds more clutter (a recurring theme), but when I get a tablet, I'm sure I'll love it.

  Message history. Here's an awesome feature. In fact, probably the coolest thing about the new client. When you start a new conversation, it shows you the last few lines of conversation. That'll save a lot of “oh damn, I closed the window” problems.

  Nudges. Actually, I don't know what this is. I THINK it's a way to make the window beep or move or something to draw people's attention. Has the possibility to be helpful, and unlike many other features, can be easily disabled.

OK, and that does it for the useful new features. Now, lets turn to all the load of crap they crammed into the new client:

  Winks. There's winks here and there. There's even a “My Winks” option, which sounds like some kind of gay porn thing. And what is this? Stupid animations that take over the window and annoy the heck out of everyone except 13-year-old girls. Fortunately, reception of them can be disabled. BUT, you still get a whole ~50 pixels devoted to this feature in every IM window. 

  More clutter. Almost every feature is now cluttered with junk. The emoticon window, for instance, now has a “What's Hot” section, featuring random sets of ugly icons. “Packs”. Now, in EVERY IM window, you have another ~50px devoted to downloading new packs of backgrounds, display pictures and icons. This should be in the options or main window, not each conversation window. A “Click here to customize MSN Messenger” link that takes you to an MSN page, and again, something that belongs inside the main window, not each conversation. Sigh. “Get over it, you don't need to use those things!“ people might say. That's not the point. Up until now, MSN Messenger was a clean, slick, useful tool. Now the UI is busy with all sorts of junk. It's visually annoying.

  “Billing Information”. At first I got scared, thinking everything was going to be charged. But it doesn't seem that way. Instead, you have Blue Mountain (the people who sued MS over Outlook Express's Junk Mail feature and got it removed from the product), selling you... you guessed it: More useless icons and pictures for MSN Messenger. Wow! As if the free stuff wasn't craptastic enough, now you get the pleasure of paying for lame icons.

Finally, all the usefull stuff they still haven't done:

 Sign in with status. You still can't sign in as away or so on.

 Status for group or contact. AFAIK, there's no way to appear as Offline or Away to a certain group, while Online to others. 

 Search history. Self explanatory.

So, I guess in MSN (which is at least as strange as marketing divisions), features that appealed to 13-year-olds, infants, and lemmings, were rated as more important than improveing usability or usefulness of the product. The only excuse I see is “MSN Messenger is for l4m3rz and for serious people you should get Istanbul and LCS and whatever integration product MS sees fit.” I suppose you get what you pay for. I hope Microsoft aquires MSN and fixes their products.

Anyways, I'm going to uninstall this thing now. I just hope they don't try a protocol switch and forced upgrade anytime soon.