User Community Rallies Behind MSN Deskbar

The MSN Search Weblog has linked to DeskbarShortcuts.com, a site aiming to put together a database of MSN Deskbar shortcuts (more here). I don't think I'm reaching to suggest that this should scare the hell out of Google. I've been arguing for a while that Google's strategy of appealing to the tech elite would fail as Microsoft reaches out to the masses. MSN has released in the last month Spaces, MSN Desktop Search, and the MSN Deskbar, all of which are appealing to the typical computer user in ways Blogger, GDS, and Google Deskbar can't, and a user-site dedicated to Deskbar shortcuts is only the beginning. Google can release APIs for all its products, but shortcuts work a lot better for most users. Google has got to work at giving its products more mass appeal, because that is the one area MSN is killing them in.