Microsoft released a press pack today giving us a better insight into what appears very humble origins to the Messenger service. Below are some quotes from the pack we found to be interesting:
About 12 years ago, Danny Glasser was heads down dealing with a problem. Users of Microsoft NetMeeting, an audiovisual communication client, were having trouble finding the people they wanted to talk to. This wasn't exactly ideal for a service that billed itself as a collaboration tool, so the team set out to find a fix. The proposed solution: enable NetMeeting users to maintain a list of the people they cared about, to be able to see when those contacts were online, and to be able to easily initiate NetMeeting calls with those contacts. It was dubbed the "Buddy List" project.
According to comScore, six out of every 10 instant messenger users chat with Windows Live Messenger. The service has more than 330 million active users who send roughly 9.4 billion messages every day. That puts it behind only Windows, Office, and Hotmail in terms of Microsoft consumer products used around the world.
Looking back, Glasser said he's amazed at how huge Messenger has become. At the outset, scalability was one of the team's biggest concerns. Inside the hallway at Red West, the Microsoft campus in Redmond with Glasser is based, the team put up a real-time counter showing the number of simultaneous online connections (SOCs) around the clock. They started with tens of thousands and hit the 1 million mark after a year. Today, Windows Live Messenger sees about 40 million SOCs.
"It's tremendously gratifying to see the influence we have had, not just at Microsoft and with customers, but the way it has affected people's lives," Glasser said. "I'm thrilled and honored to have played a part in it."
Wait, there's more. Lots more. The MessengerSays blog has been filled over the past week within interesting posts. You can meet the Windows Live Messenger development team or maybe read some successful stories on proposing using Messenger. The team also asked users and industry insiders what their favorite emoticon was in the application. You may want to read about the early history of Messenger and hear the stories of some of the original development team too.
Some of the original members of the Messenger development team
When I asked the team if they had any big plans for today they hinted that the green Messenger buddy had been seen around the Microsoft campus. Little did I know they made a video of the infamous Messenger buddy celebrating his birthday. You can see it below:
So that's it, Messenger has turned 10 years old, although I've been using it for just over four years it has come along way very quickly. Maybe its relevance has declined during this the social networking revolution, but one cannot deny it grew out of all recognition that even Microsoft did not plan for.
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