threedegrees or 3° (frequently referred to as Three Degrees) was a communication and

P2P P2P may refer to: * Pay to play, where money is exchanged for services * Peer-to-peer, a distributed application architecture in computing or networking ** List of P2P protocols * Phenylacetone, an organic compound commonly known as P2P * Poin ...

application produced by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. It allowed the user to sign in using a .NET Passport and integrated into

MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...

. It sorted buddies into groups, and allowed initiating group chats in

, and sharing of pictures, listening to a shared playlist and sending animated winks. threedegrees is now discontinued and the certain features provided by the software have been partially integrated into MSN Messenger 7. threedegrees used to only run under

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

Service Packs 1 and 2, with a custom

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...

stack installed. threedegrees had a concept of being able to stream your music to other threedegrees users like a miniature radio station. However, despite the other new features being included in MSN Messenger 7, this feature did not make it due to large copyright issues that would be faced by Microsoft. MSN Messenger does, however, now enable other users to see what their buddy is listening to and is linked to a website providing this music if needed, a concept spurred by this idea. The threedegrees product was conceived and produced by an internal startup at Microsoft called the Netgen team. The team was unique in that it was an internal startup inside of Microsoft, set away from the software giant's Redmond campus in separate offices in downtown Seattle and staffed mostly with college graduates tasked to create a product "for themselves". The team was chronicled in Newsweek on February 24, 2003 by writer

Steven Levy Steven Levy (born 1951) is an American journalist and Editor at Large for ''Wired'' who has written extensively for publications on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. He is the author of the 1984 book ...

in his article "Microsoft Gets A Clue From Its Kiddie Corps". While the threedegrees product never reached mass adoption, it represented one of Microsoft's early attempts to revitalize its MSN division through the creation of an incubator team outside of the company's main R&D structure.

External links

3° site
(via the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

; accessed September 25, 2005)

Notes

Discontinued Microsoft software File sharing software Windows-only instant messaging clients {{network-software-stub