If you’re a Live Spaces user, you might have run into a little bug recently. If your Space is unavailable, it might be due to the Windows Media Player module. The LiveSide blog has the scoop:

So for anyone with the Windows Media Player module installed on their space and set to “invisible” before the update, that site is now “unavailable”, but there’s a pretty easy workaround…

0. Sign in passport

1. Go to “http://youralias.spaces.live.com/?_c=WMP ” (no quotes, insert your spaces name)

2. Change “Display mode” as full — DO NOT Set “Display mode” as Invisible

3. Save

Not too hard to fix, but kind of annoying. Evidently the bug should be fixed soon. Good luck!

CNN officially launched their new, redesigned website today. The site, which has been in beta for a few weeks, includes many “web 2.0″ features like user generated content, podcasts, and a clean, simple layout. For a great overview of the new site, check out Read/WriteWeb.

Video (and multimedia in general) is a major feature of the new site. In the past CNN has been a major user of Windows Media formats, but that has changed with the redesign. All videos are now encoded to Flash (FLV) meaning you no longer need to have Windows Media Player installed to view them.

In fact, the only feature I can see that still uses Windows Media is the radio stream. The site says Live Video is coming soon, and that may use Windows Media as well. Otherwise, everything is either Flash or MP3/M4V (podcasts).

All video content at CNN.com is free, so they have no need for DRM. Thus, it makes sense to move from Windows Media to Flash, as more users/computers have Flash installed than Windows Media Player.

This seems to be a growing trend - moving video content to Flash. Call it the YouTube effect I guess. I wonder if Silverlight will do anything to stop this? Windows Media and the other codecs that Silverlight support offer much higher quality than Flash.

Time will tell!

The BBC has announced a launch date for iPlayer, it’s on demand TV service. Starting July 27th, users will be able to use the software to download popular BBC content seven days after its first transmission. Nothing has changed on the technology front - it will still be Windows-only initially, and it will still use Windows Media DRM (the BBC website says it will work with Windows Media Player 10 or above). The application will be improved too:

Over time other features will be added to the iPlayer including live streaming of programmes, the BBC Radio Player and “series stacking”, which will allow users to download episodes from series retrospectively.

Director General Mark Thompson compared the launch of iPlayer to the launch of color television (which the BBC introduced 40 years ago) in terms of its impact. I think that remains to be seen, but the BBC could indeed be on to something.

I was reading some blog posts about the launch date news, and came across Tim Anderson’s post. He’s excited for the software, but worries that using Microsoft technology could doom the software:

This aspect bothers me as well, not only because of cross-platform issues, but because I question whether Microsoft is able to deliver DRM that just works.

Umm, can you give me an example of any other DRM that “just works”? I don’t think you can use DRM and “just works” in the same sentence, at least not from the consumer’s point of view. Like the Open Source Consortium, I think Tim has picked the wrong enemy.

The news that Weedshare has closed its doors isn’t new, evidently, but I just came across it today (more coverage lately for some reason). I remember hearing about it once before, but even I needed a refresher on just what the service was all about, so here you go:

Weedshare was a digital download platform that used “viral” DRM in combination with a multi-level marketing approach to sell content of indie musicians. Musicians could distribute Weedshare files through their own website, official download locations and P2P networks. Users could listen to a file three times before purchasing it.

Interesting idea, I suppose, but choosing to use DRM put the nail in the coffin right from the get-go. Weedshare used Windows Media Audio files, meaning that the music could only be played with software and devices that supported Microsoft’s DRM schemes. Many reports make it sound like Microsoft is responsible for Weedshare’s demise:

Weedshare was smoked by Microsoft, whose latest version of Windows Media Player was incompatible with Weedshare files.

There is no information on the issues and attempts of SML to convert or translate Weedshare files to be compatible with Microsoft’s latest software.

As with all things however, there is another side to the story:

CD Baby was supposedly Weedshare’s largest content provider, with 60.000 titles available at the end of 2004. Still, 15 months later, CD Baby artists had only made a total of 1348 dollars, which means that Weedshare sold less than 3000 songs of the CD Baby catalogue during that time.

Sounds kind of like Weedshare was going nowhere fast and simply blamed its woes on Windows Media Player 11. The lack of mainstream coverage would seem to support this.

One of the tech industry blogs that I consider to be a “must read” is Mashable. Not only do they offer a ton of very timely news, they have some great analysis too, which generally leads to healthy discussion. The latest such post is entitled No Download Required: 30+ Apps That Are Killing Microsoft. Inside, author Ben Gold details new online competitors for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and even Windows itself.

Notably absent from the list of applications is Windows Media Player.

Perhaps this is because it is more difficult to make an online media playing application than an online word processor. Or, perhaps it is because Windows Media Player is a pretty decent application. I have some issues with version 11, but generally speaking, it’s a solid piece of software.

WMP is fast, has pretty good codec support, and handles large libraries of media very well. It integrates with a number of online stores, and synchronizes with mobile devices superbly. Ripping and burning CDs is also a pretty good experience inside WMP.

And yet it could be so much more! If I were Microsoft, I’d treat the Mashable post as a call to action for the WMP team. Take WMP to the next level by extending it to the web before the competition beats you to it! Here’s an example of what I mean: make a Facebook application and WMP plugin that displays what I’m listening to on my profile page, just like the plugin for Windows Live Messenger. Or revamp the wmplugins.com site and integrate it into the application itself.

And please, please do something about the lack of podcasting support. That should be priority #1!