On behalf of the Windows Live team, I want to introduce you to the latest update in the Windows Live social networking portfolio – starting today, you can keep your friends up to date in Windows Live from Facebook!  Now if you upload new pictures to facebook, share news, videos, status updates, … all of these will show up in your what’s new feed in Messenger, Hotmail, and your Windows Live Homepage!

All you need to do is to click on the following link then follow 3 easy steps: add, authenticate, allow, and you are set! 

Not a facebooker?  With this release we also launched many other partner integrations as well, such as  Digg, Last.fm, Photobucket, and more.  Click here to look at all the latest partners we have available!

Old news to many, hopefully still new to some!

To all you facebookers and messenger lovers, I know you love updating facebook status message all the times and I also you love messenger and you are keeping it on 24x7, now here’s one tip that helps you update your facebook status messenger even more often!!

Now you can update your facebook status via messenger!

Here’s what it will look like

To do it, it’s actually simpler than you think:

1st - add the messenger app to your facebook,  http://apps.facebook.com/windowslivemessenger/.  [P.S. this app is created by Microsoft]

2nd go to the settings page, and check the second box

QED!

And I’d love to end this post with a quote from my friend Dharmesh..

It’s a mistake! Please just ignore it – you won’t have any problem signing into Messenger using your existing Messenger ID.  Our core team has also made a blog post here.  We are really sorry for the confusion that this might have caused, but trust me, I also feel your pain: even though I didn’t see the error myself (was having dinner), I received quite a number of emails asking me about the legitimacy of such error :)

I guess on a brighter note, treat it as a belated April fool’s joke. :)

.

More to come!

	Christmas Emoticon Pack 2008
	Athlete Theme Pack Aug 2008
	GTA IV Theme Pack
	Love Family Emoticon Pack
	Halo 3 Theme Pack
	Messenger Emoticon Pack

http://www.youup.com/site/page-download-demo.html

This is actually pretty amazing stuff!  Check out the demo video on the site and you’ll know what I mean (hopefully :)).  Warning though, the site is written in French.  I’m going to download the private beta and try it out tonight. 

Even if you are not interested in more emoticons, it’s fun to see how each country has a different type of design when coming to emoticons / creatives.

Canada: coming soon!

US: Not ready yet

Australia:  http://promo.meegos.com/xmas2008/

Brazil: http://specials.br.msn.com/ilovemessenger/pacotes.aspx

Italy: http://intrattenimento.it.msn.com/emoticon/natale08

More countries to come…

Ever thought that your static display picture is not good enough and want some real action (literally) in the dp? With the latest messenger v9.0 beta you can create your own personal dynamic display picture for free, with just a webcam.

Below is a quick demo on how I created mine.

Enjoy!

I’m in Redmond, Seattle attending a meeting.   It’s 6:30am now and I’m on a call with some Toronto folks and my meeting is going to run till like 7pm tonight.  I’m foreseeing today is one of those hellish days. 

Before I start rushing into the fire and absorbing information like a sponge, just wanna share a light hearted moment last night before/after we went into the bar :)  A colleague of mine (no it’s not me, I swear!) got dressed up in a messenger buddy suit.  Now don’t you get scared 2am at night when you see a green dude walking around with no eyes and nose, it’s probably just my colleague.

With the Olympics flames still burning red hot in my mind, I’m going to share another sports-related campaign.  you guys might have seen it before as this is not so new.. but for those of you who haven’t ….

Basically, it’s a campaign that we are running to allow you to customize winks in messenger.  A wink is the thing that pops up in your messenger chat window and run in your friend’s screen.  Well I admit that sometimes it could be annoying but at certain times it could be fun :) 

Just go to this site:

http://yourinnerathlete.windowslive.com/?locale=en-ca&ocid=TXT_MSGTB_WLYIA_ca

It will ask you a few questions and determine what type of “athlete” are you.  (I’m a ping pong player in this case), and at the end, it will ask you to upload your own headshot and then it will merge it with the cartoon character.  You can then have a choice to install it for free on your messenger and that character will be available as a wink completely free.  It won’t even try to reset your homepage or search default, just a clean simple download :).  And hey, if you don’t like it, you can remove it with one click [Go to Winks, Show all, remove].

What athlete is in you?

I’m pleased to announce that the WL platform team has just released another application to help our users communicate in the online world.  This latest release is a instant messaging application on Facebook that leverage our Windows Live Messenger IM Control SDK.  All Facebook users could take advantage of this Microsoft branded application for free today, allowing them to connect with their Facebook friends on Windows Live Messenger. 

How does this work?

After you add the application to your facebook profile, you will see the following on your profile page.  When your friends go into your facebook profile, they could start an IM conversation with you by simply clicking onto the chat window, sign in using their WL ID, and their message will be delivered to your actual messenger client. 

Communication is limited between the two parties within the session and other people who visit chris’s profile would not be able to see our chat history.  Conversation is limited to text-only and no emoticons, no video, nor any other interactions such as winks, games, etc.  As you can see below as well, you’ll be able to add the profile owner to you Windows Live Messenger contact list directly from the app. 

Add it today! Be a fan! Spread the words! Start IM-ing!

These days have been crazy for me.  I just finished my master degree, began our 2009 planning process, finishing up on the sign in and win promos, prepping for energizeIT...  anyway, I'm glad that the first post after a month is to announce the 1st set of winners for signinandwin.

The bad thing about contest is that it's very hard to find the right person to claim the prize!  Call them up, get them to believe in you that it is not a scam, get them to sign the contest release form...  that's why it takes so long to release the winners.  Anyway, check it out at http://signinandwin.ca or go to the messenger tab and click on the "winners" link at the bottom!  Hopefully your name is on it!  More winners coming soon!

This is authentic, not a spoof, not a scam, not a spam (I hope).  Canada has launched a campaign that Windows Live Messenger users could win $1000 a day.  I'm not a lawyer so don't pick on my wordings, but you can learn more from here, http://www.signinandwin.ca.

The idea is simple, log into Messenger, click on the tab, and you are eligible for the draw. 

This is real, we will send you the prize.  What are you waiting for, click on the tab and sign up :)

Tell your friends about it too!

Invite2Messenger has come to Canada!

What is it?

A portal that allows users to access all their contact lists from different social networking sites, and invite them to join Messenger or add them to their contact lists.  You can try it out today at http://www.invite2messenger.net .  Currently we support Facebook only, but our plan is to expand this list to Hotmail, bebo, LinkedIn, Hi5 and Tagged. 

Sample Invitation

Start inviting! :)

Finally, one of the things I personally look forward to has arrived. 

The Windows Live Messenger Library allows developers to fully customize most aspects of messenger.  Being a javascript client library, websites have full control over the user experience.  From the core textbased messaging, to managing contact list and presence, it gives you all the tools you need.  More importantly, it works cross browser and on Windows and Macs.  The biggest difference between this WLML and the previous Windows Live IM Control includes multiple participants messaging, application messages (emoticons etc),Javascript tagging no more anonymous messages (no HIP checking(?)).

Want to see it in action? check out a simple sample here.  Want more? check out ibloke.com's implementation here.

For the official value props you can always refer to Angus Logan's blog,

If you are a developer, check out the SDK now!

Today is my last day in the downtown office (and more than likely is my last post) in 2007, merry Christmas and happy new year to all of you!

As a holiday gift, I'll present you with the latest Messenger game! :) :) -- Jigsaw Too Photo Edition

Jigsaw Too Photo Edition is a new edition of the popular Jigsaw Too game, which enables people to share Jigsaw puzzles in Messenger made out of photos they supply from their personal photo collections.  The game leverages peer to peer file sharing features in Messenger, demonstrating how games can extend and enhance the capabilities of an instant messaging platform. 

So, if you are like me [no plans on Christmas eve, Christmas day, etc...] start your free trial today from the games drop-down in the Messenger conversation window :)

Once again, happy holidays!

P.S. Happy birthday to our friend Kip over at LiveSide :)

I'm in Redmond this week attending the annual product management summit.  Basically this is a time when product managers around the world get together and share experiences in the last year and thoughts for next year.  I'll write more about that later next week, but I have something so stunning that I want to capture this moment.

I was sitting beside Barrie Ooi, the APAC regional PM, (in fact, I'm still sitting beside him now).  I was looking at his screen and saw his messenger interface.  His interface looks kinda different from mine (his was left image on the top, mine was the image on the right).  Being naive, I thought he has a later internal build than I do.  Always wanting to try out the latest and greatest, I asked Barrie where he got the bits.  Then he gave me that look that basically said, "you are so pathetic for not knowing this".

But hey, I'm not the product manager for Messenger! =)

Hey all WL messenger users out there, getting tired of your emoticons?  D/l this pack of 30 emoticons for free here.  

By the way currently in WL Gallery, you could only upload static JPG files for Messenger emoticons.  I'm sure a lot of you agree that this's boring.  We all want animated emoticons!  I'm currently working with the dev team, in the next release, expect to see more animated icons (GIF) to be d/l for free at WL Gallery. 

Another cool game has been launched in Canada!  It comes out that it's one of the first games that you will learn in the early childhood, ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS. 

Just tried it really quickly myself and it's fun and quick.  Nice to play a few rounds with your friends in between meetings :)

But  of course there are many improvements that we could make to the games, such as being able to skin the little buddy, providing better animations or throw in other interactive elements.  Feel free to leave a comment or two to let us know what you think about it!

I've been playing around  with Windows Live Messenger lately, and even though I've been using it for the the longest period of time, I've discovered something new and useful yesterday.  After chatting with Randy,  the feature is called Power Search.  Great name I'd say, as the feature is just as the name implies, a powerful one.

I always stumble on one problem, when I want to share a list of the search results with my friends, say, I want to search for "Windows Live MIX 07", I either have to do a search and then copy and paste the X number of results to a chat window, or I have to send them the query and ask them to do the search themselves.  This has two problems, in the first case, I have to do a lot of work to keep the content organized so my friends would actually look at them; and in the second case, it's very hard to ask my friends to do one extra little click to open up a search engine to get the query.

What Power Search offers me, is to share these search results directly within my messenger client, without the need to do any copy and paste or opening a new IE.  Try this out:

And you'll see a application window pops open:

Say, I typed in Ottawa Senators as my search string, and I got the following.  I highlighted two buttons, the top button (shape like a messenger buddy) will send the search results directly to the chat window along with a short description of the link, the second button will actually open up a mini browser within your messenger activity window with a very cool zoom-able preview of the website.  This is just like the deepfish browser for PC.  Ideal for saving some screen space.

Other than textual search, you can also flip over to image search by clicking on the "Images" tab.  Just like in the textual case, you can send the link to your messenger chat window, and you can open a preview in the mini browser.  But what makes it so cool is that, you can drag and drop the preview into your display picture, and you can drop it to your background!  If you have chosen to share your current background with your friend, this will automatically initiate a sharing process.

As far as I know, the dev team is still working on improving this power search feature in the client.  Try this out and let me know if you have any suggestions!