Microsoft recently launched WindUp for Windows Phone, an app that lets you send messages, including text, photos, audio clips and videos to your friends, which will then be destroyed.
Messages can be timed to last for a set duration, following which they get deleted permanently. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s like Snapchat or any number of clones.
But unlike other disappearing apps that self-destruct only after the recipient sees them, WindUp messages can die out minutes after sending them – thus ‘winding up’ the recipient.
Ephemeral messaging is not a unique concept any more and Microsoft has been accused of bringing yet another Snapchat clone. Snapchat’s popularity put it in an envious position, with Facebook and Google vying for a stake in it. Facebook later launched Slingshot as a competitor, but with little success.
However, Microsoft has cleared the air about launching WindUp as another competitor to Snapchat. In a blog post, it states that WindUp was created with a goal to learn how people create, share and converse about content online, as part of Microsoft’s Research. It also adds “It isn’t meant to compete with anyone else’s service, and it isn’t meant for commercial purposes.”
WindUp is merely a prototype that which will help Microsoft understand how people create and exchange content. So does this mean that Windows Phone users have become lab rats to Microsoft’s experiments, following Facebook and OKCupid’s example? Not really, because Microsoft has cleared that the app is not meant for commercial purposes and is solely to understand its audience. Unlike Facebook and OKCupid, it also doesn’t appear to manipulate people’s feeds.
That said, Microsoft had not openly revealed that the app was meant for research and only carried the Microsoft Research logo. This was probably so that users downloaded WindUp thinking it’s just another app.
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