Have you received any invitations to join your friends and family on Windows Live? If you haven't yet, you probably will. That's because Windows Live is getting more social.
In fact, you can argue that Windows Live was one of the largest untapped social networks in the world. Just think of everyone's Hotmail and Messenger contacts and you'll see what I mean. Our challenge was how to transition from something most people (including probably you) think of as e-mail and instant messaging to something more social.
As we were planning this release of Windows Live, we knew it was important not to have it be "yet another social network." After all, would you want to join just another social network? If youre like most of our customers, youre already participating in several other social networks, and the biggest challenge was just keeping on top of them all.
So we wanted to make sure Windows Live connected to other popular social networking services in addition to having its own social features. Here are some of the social networks we connect to:
· Twitter
· Flickr
· StumbleUpon
· Flixster
· iLike
· Pandora
· Yelp
· TripIt
· WordPress
· PhotoBucket
· Daum
And any custom blog with an RSS feed
We hope to continue to expand the list over time, eventually providing a single place to see everything going on with your friends and family in all your favorite social networks.
This is our fundamental direction for Windows Live.
We want to be a great way for you to communicate and share with the people you care about most. Plus we want Windows Live to be an ideal place for you to keep your overall life in sync with those people, regardless of how you might be connected to them.
Another design consideration we made with this release was making sure you could get those social network updates easily on the web (on http://home.live.com for instance), on your PC (with Windows Live applications like Messenger), or on your mobile phone (via http://mobile.live.com).
Regardless of where you are, Windows Live can help you stay connected.
You can find out more about this latest release of Windows Live at some of these locations:
http://www.windowslive.com
http://windowslivewire.spaces.live.com
Were just in the early stages of this move to becoming more social and would welcome your feedback on the start of our journey.
Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of these changes to Windows Live. I'd also love to hear any questions you might have or suggestions for future topics.
Marcus Schmidt is the Windows Live Community manager. He blogs at Marcus @ Microsoft. You can follow Marcus on Twitter
This is another step in connectivity between the various applications one uses on their computer, and it is a large one since Hotmail is used by so many. It appears to be continuing to a point where all of a person’s actions and internet activity are inter-related.
2009 is definitely the year for interconnectivity of all networks.
It good to see Windows is following trends in the new internet era of socializing, with tendentious to bring something new and fresh. Connecting all people on Windows networks will be great thing for sure for all users.
In my opinion – this entire social networking thing is getting totally out of hand – who really has the time to keep up with it all?
I guess social networking is popular. people really use this as a way to market and at the same time to gain more friends. This is big.
@LadyGolfer Good point – but I suspect most people have their favourite one or two tools that they keep up with.
In time, it’ll all get consolidated into one or two key essential tools. Remember, at one time there used to be tens of mobile companies and hundreds of search engines. Not any more!
Going social is great ! Good news to me. Thanks for the update
I have to agree with LadyGolfer. Even though I have really tried to hold back I still find myself spending way to many non-productive hours on different social sites every single week. I dare not calculate the missed earnings 🙂
· Twitter
· Flickr
· StumbleUpon
· Flixster
· iLike
· Pandora
· Yelp
· TripIt
· WordPress
· PhotoBucket
· Daum
Gosh that’s almost too many to keep track of!
I have been in Internet Marketing 6 months on the run and not too successful on results traffic, one occasion I have good amounts of traffic the rest were flat, this new icon will surely to be tested, hopefully works for me, you’ll never know what will happen until you tried it, right?
The new service also includes a number of features that mimic Facebook. For instance you can tag all of your friends in photos inWindows Live. There is a limitless number of tools, far beyond those that other social networks currently offer. For example there are online productivity applications that are integrated directly into the Windows Live experience.
In my opinion – this entire social networking thing is getting totally out of hand – who really has the time to keep up with it all?
I agree with that. I have already given up on many of the social networks I joined. I do think that more niche social networks are the way forward in the future, connecting people with similar interests and ideas.
Though I think Window Live is worth trying indeed I agree with Metaspring. To keep track of so many social networks WL is connected will be not so easy.
I use it and would recommend for others to use it. Great for social junkies.
Lets see how long it will take them to fail this time. It seems like all MSN/Live does is try and catch up with the rest.