Windows Live is available in 48 languages and 54 countries around the world, and so it’s only appropriate that the web activities we offer reflect the geographic and linguistic diversity of the people who use it. If you sign in to look at your updated web activities list, you’ll see the web activities that more people use in your region at the top, with the rest of the available web activities below that. For example, if you’re based in the United States, you’ll see Flickr and Photobucket listed in the top four, but if you’re in Russia, you’ll see wow.ya.ru and LiveJournal at the top:

Back in December 2008, when we launched our original dozen web activity partners, we were not sure if we should hide partners that were not translated into the language of the person viewing them. We decided to err on the side of making more partners available to more people. For example the Korean social network Daum is available to me, even though I am in the United States, so that Koreans living anywhere in the world can still add this web activity to Windows Live. Even though the number of people in the US who have added Daum to Windows Live is relatively low, we’ve still seen a few people in the U.S. add Daum nearly every day.

We’ve decided to continue in this direction, so you may see some web activities for services that are not offered in your language. We’ve translated the descriptions of each web activity partner, so if you’re Greek and you’re looking at the Israeli service Hevre, you’ll see a description of Hevre in Greek:

In building web activities for a worldwide audience we also considered the possibility that two friends might have different native languages. For example, I’m interested in the updates of a guy named PicturePan2, the author of http://livesino.net/ who writes about Windows Live primarily in Chinese. I only speak English (and a small bit of Spanish) so I can’t understand most of his status updates or blog posts, but when I go to PicturePan’s profile on Windows Live, the text provided by Windows Live is shown in English:

(And because I’m using Internet Explorer 8, if I want more of the details translated, I can just select the text and click the translation Accelerator to get a word-by-word translation.)

These are just a few examples of how we’ve made web activities work for people living around the world. There’s a full list of all web activity partners from around the world here.

For a quick overview of how web activities work on Windows Live, check out this video posted by my colleague Angus Logan:

Thanks very much—

- Rob

 (Updated, April 28, 2009): This update is now complete for users worldwide.

As mentioned in the blog post from Tuesday, we’ve now completed rollout of an update that includes more web activities and more partners for importing contacts. An easy way to check to see if you’ve got the latest release is to go to http://profile.live.com/WebActivities/. If you see about a dozen web activities, you’re not there yet; but if you see about 30 web activities, then you’ve got the update.

If you use any of the listed websites, think about adding them to your profile. Any new stuff you do on the sites you add (like a song you choose on Last.fm, photos you post on Smugmug, or a status update you make on Facebook), will go into “What’s new with you” on your Windows Live profile. Depending on whom you choose to share your web activities with, these “What’s new” items may also show for people in your network in Messenger, on http://home.live.com/, on Hotmail Today, and when someone using Windows Live Hotmail sends you an e-mail.

 Updates for my new activities show up in “What’s new”

Also with this release, now you can import contacts to Windows Live from Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tagged (a full list of all feed partners and contact partners is posted here). Start importing new contacts at http://profile.live.com/connect/.

And here are a few other recent improvements that you may notice:

• RSS feeds are now easier to find for blogs and lists.
• You’ll start to notice improved results when searching for people on Windows Live from the Windows Live Home or People pages.
• On Windows Live Home, you can now update your personal message inline, without going to a separate message editing page.

There are more screenshots and videos in the blog post from Tuesday. You can also check back here on the Windows Live team blog over the next few days as more folks from the team add blog posts about the features they’ve worked on.

Thanks—

Rob

P.S. (Updated, April 27, 4:45 PM PST) Here are more examples of the new web activity services:

• If you use a social networking service worldwide, you can add your updates from:
  Facebook, Twitter, Arto, Daum, Fotolog, Hevre, wow.ya.ru, Zoo, and more
• If you share photos online you can now add updates to Windows Live from:
  Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, SmugMug, Metroflog, Bilddagboken, and more
• If you have a blog, you can add it to Windows Live from:
  Wordpress, LiveJournal, Typepad, Overblog, or the custom blog activity, which works with Blogger and others.
• If you use any of these sites for information, music, video, or radio service, you can add them to Windows Live:
  MSN, The Zune Social, iLike, Pandora, Last.fm, Dada, Dailymotion, and more
• And if you use a variety of different review sites, you can add them to Windows Live from:
  Digg, Flixster, StumbleUpon, Tripit, Yelp, and more

Like many of you, I do a ton of different things on the web across a variety of sites and services.  From sharing real-time updates on Twitter to writing a review of my favorite new Seattle restaurant on Yelp, my online activities are as varied as my interests.  I have one group of friends on Facebook, another group on Windows Live and yet another that I communicate with on LinkedIn. While I love the all the ways there are to communicate, it can be daunting to manage all of my different online activities and contact lists, and I would love a way to make my online life just a little simpler.  

20 new web activities to add

That’s why I am excited to announce that within a week, Windows Live will add more ways for you to share your online life with the people you care about. Over the next few days we will add 20 new feed partners to Windows Live.  This means that you’ll be able to add your web activities from more than 30 websites to your Windows Live profile, and your activities on those sites will then appear on Windows Live.  The new partners include Facebook, Digg, Last.fm, and SmugMug and other partners. By adding your activities from these sites, it’s easier than ever to share your activities from across the Web on Windows Live.

Now when I update my status or share pictures on sites like Facebook, Fotolog, metroFLOG, Photobucket, or SmugMug, I can choose to have that activity automatically added to  “What’s new with Rob” on my profile, and this is reflected throughout Windows Live.

Similarly, when I use Digg, Facebook, or StumbleUpon to recommend an article or website, I can choose to have it show up automatically in “What’s new with Rob,” so people in my network can see it right away.

You’ll be able to add all of the new web activities (plus the dozen current ones) directly from the Web activities link on your profile.

Three new ways to add people to your network

To make it easier to keep track of all your contacts in one place, we are also announcing three new contact partners that allow you to share the contacts you have on different social networking sites. Soon,  MySpace, Hi5, and Tagged will join Facebook and LinkedIn as sites that let you invite your friends to Windows Live and vice versa.  Rather than starting from scratch and building up an entirely new contact list, now you can safely and securely invite your contacts directly to Windows Live from one of these five social networks.

Here is a quick 60-second video of how contact importing works courtesy of my colleague, Angus Logan:

All of these updates and more will go live in the next week.  In the meantime, Windows Live general manager Brian Hall provides a great overview of what this means for Windows Live customers. For another overview, check out this longer video from Angus.

Stay tuned here on the Windows Live team blog (or subscribe via RSS) for more information about these and other updates over the next week or so. On behalf of all of the folks who build Windows Live, thanks for trying it out. We hope you like the latest updates!

-  Rob Dolin

  Program Manager, Windows Live team

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We use your comments to help us improve Windows Live. For your own safety, please don’t post personal contact info. We’re sorry, but due to the volume of comments, we cannot contact you individually or respond to most comments. To get help, use the “Go get help” links at the top of the blog, and we’ll do our best to answer frequently asked questions not covered on the Help and Support sites.

Yes, you’ve been asking us, and we promised you’d get it soon. Well, the moment you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived: instant messaging from the web is here! Now you can send instant messages from the Windows Live Hotmail and People pages! This means that, even if you’re on a public computer where Windows Live Messenger isn’t installed, you can still send IMs to your Messenger contacts! 

Customers in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and USA will see this feature for the first time today (as usual, rollout to different individuals is gradual, so if you don’t see it yet, please be patient). This feature rolled out to users in France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the UK last month. Not in your area yet? We will be rolling out web-based Messenger to more locations in the coming months.

Sign in to Messenger on the Web in Hotmail

Here’s what you get with the new web Messenger:

• You can sign in to and send instant messages from any computer connected to the Internet, even if it doesn’t have Windows Live Messenger installed.
• You can also send IMs to your Messenger contacts from the People page (your contact list). Just click the contact’s picture, and you’ll see Send an instant message on the dropdown menu.

 Send an instant message from a contact’s drop-down menu on the People page

• In Hotmail, if one of your Messenger contacts sends you e-mail, you’ll see their Messenger availability indicated in green, yellow, or red right by their name. If it’s green, click it and instantly start chatting.

 A chat window in web Messenger

• If you have more than one Windows Live ID, you can sign in to web Messenger and regular Messenger at the same time, with different IDs.
• Don’t worry, people can only see your availability if you’ve agreed to be their Messenger contacts. You can sign in and use Hotmail or any other Windows Live service without signing in to web Messenger, so nobody can start chatting with you until you decide to let them know you’re available.

Have fun, and let us know how you like it!

- Antonia
Windows Live team

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We use your comments to help us improve Windows Live. For your own safety, please don’t post personal contact info. We’re sorry, but due to the volume of comments, we cannot contact you individually or respond to most comments. To get help, use the “Go get help” links at the top of the blog, and we’ll do our best to answer frequently asked questions not covered on the Help and Support sites.

Judging by comments I’ve seen here on the blog, some of you have received random links in offline messages in Messenger. The links appear to come from your friends, but when you click them, they go to something unexpected or unsavory.

Unfortunately, this is a worm. When you click such a link, not only do you go to a site that your friend didn’t send you, and that you probably do NOT want to see, but the worm can also get into your Messenger, and send similar IMs to everyone in your contact list, thus keeping the chain going. Sneaky, eh? If you think you may have clicked a link like this in the past, run a free full-PC scan to help ensure that your PC has not been infected. 

And don’t click any links in Messenger unless you are 100% sure that your friend intended to send you those links.

Here is a great blog post about this worm, on Jonathan Kay’s Messenger Geek blog: How to avoid a phishing worm on Messenger and what to do if you've been affected.

- Antonia

   Windows Live Team

Have you seen the completely new Windows Live Hotmail for mobile? You can try it out by going to http://mobile.live.com from your phone’s browser and clicking Hotmail. I’ve been playing around with the beta for the last month, and I’m a believer! Here’s a short list of what you can do on the new Hotmail for mobile:

• Search your e-mail messages   Hotmail searches all your folders and returns any message that includes your search term. It’s similar to Hotmail search on a PC. I’ve found this really helpful for finding stuff when I’m short on time (or battery), particularly because it takes longer on a phone to scroll through a long list of e-mail messages.

Search your inbox

• See all the cool stuff in your messages   If you have a phone with Windows Mobile 6 or later, an iPhone, or another phone with an advanced web browser, you can see pictures, images, “clickable” links, and other formatting in messages. Now messages look the way they were meant to when you read them on your phone, too.

Your messages look way better

• View long messages in a single page   No need to open a new page to “get the rest of this message.” This feature has been extra handy the last week since my neighborhood recently turned into a mini-Peyton Place. Reading all the replies in the most recent messages keeps me get caught up on the latest gossip and grousing. Ah, suburbia :)

Plus, the new service is faster and more reliable than the previous version.

And here’s some of the new stuff just released on Windows Live Messenger for mobile and Windows Live Home for mobile:

• Messenger for mobile has a new look and feel and now links directly to Windows Live Home, so you can easily navigate between services.

The updated Messenger on mobile

• Windows Live Home for mobile has an improved What’s new list, with ten items appearing in the list instead of five. You can also see the things your friends are doing online at places such as Twitter, WordPress, Flickr, and more. And you can always read the full text of your friends’ personal messages.

For those of you with a Windows Mobile device who like to install programs to use for Windows Live services (instead of using your browser), the full Windows Live for Windows Mobile software (with Hotmail, Contacts, and Messenger) is now available for free download.

Ohhh, the neighborhood is going to have some more juicy gossip today. The local police just rang my doorbell to tell me about some trouble across the street last night!

- Dawn Hollingsworth, Mobile fan and suburbanite

Windows Live team

Today, The Space Craft (the official Spaces team blog), is merging with us here on the Windows Live team blog. Welcome, Space Craft readers! Here’s what Rob Dolin had to say about it, over on the Space Craft today:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm both excited and a bit nostalgic to be writing this blog entry letting our users know that The Space Craft (the official Spaces Team blog), is merging with the Windows Live team blog.

In some ways, this is a formalization of changes that started years ago as the team that built MSN Spaces expanded and partnered with other teams to help build Windows Live web services including Home, Profile, Photos, Events, Groups, and of course Spaces. ;)

For Spaces fans, here’s a quick history of our service:

• MSN Spaces launched in fall/winter 2004-2005 with support for blogs, photos, and lists. It was also integrated with MSN Messenger so that when a friend posted new content, a green star ("gleam") would show next to that person's name.
• In January 2006, support was added for searching Spaces, people, and blogs with the help of the (then MSN) Search team. (I joined the Spaces team in March of 2006.)
• In summer 2006, we added friend lists, and a host of other modules, redesigned the Spaces home page, and re-branded as Windows Live Spaces. In some ways, this was the launch of Windows Live 1.0.
• A bit over a year later in fall 2007, we launched Windows Live Events and a revised Spaces home page that included What’s New with your network and big improvements in our photo sharing experience. This broad release might be deemed Windows Live 2.0.
• As we embarked on planning for “Windows Live 3.0,” we expanded our team’s mission to include not just Spaces but also the friend/network experience, profiles, “What’s new,” permissions, groups, and Windows Live Writer.
• Most recently, starting with the web release in December 2008, we shipped a bunch of new services, including:

• Windows Live Groups
• Network invitations and friend suggestions
• Web activities
• New privacy and permissions controls

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Windows Live team blog, it is a fantastic resource for everything that is happening on Windows Live and is available at: http://WindowsLiveWire.spaces.live.com/. There is also an RSS feed and you can use Windows Live Alerts to subscribe via email, IM, or SMS.

• Twitter - You can also “follow” WindowsLive on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WindowsLive or TXT “follow WindowsLive” to 40404 in the USA, 21212 in Canada, or +44 7624 801423 in other locales.
• Facebook - You can become a fan of Windows Live Messenger and also add the Windows Live Messenger Facebook application.

Whether you view the blog on the web, follow Windows Live on Twitter, or any combination, I hope you’ll take a minute to connect with the Windows Live team. In addition, many of our team members including Chris, Eric, Joe, Michelle, and me will be continuing to blog about our work on Spaces and the rest of the Windows Live web services on Windows Live team blog. See you there. ;)

Thanks much—
- Rob Dolin
Program Manager, Windows Live team

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We love getting your feedback here, as we use it to improve Windows Live. For your own safety, please don’t post personal contact info. We’re sorry, but due to the volume of comments, we cannot contact you individually or respond to most comments. If you need help, please use the “Go get help” links at the top of the blog, and we’ll try to respond to frequently asked questions not covered on the Help and Support sites.

Many of you let us know how disappointed you were at being unable to arrange photos in your Windows Live online photo albums. We appreciate your feedback – it helps us keep improving Windows Live.

Today we’ve released a couple of quick and easy ways to arrange your photos to better tell your stories. Now you can arrange them by dragging and dropping them or by numbering the photos in the order you’d like them to appear.

Arranging photos in an album

We’ve also just released a few other small changes, including a new link from each profile that allows you to view all the photos tagged with that person’s name, and changes to Windows Live Favorites. You can read more about it on the SkyDrive team blog.

- The Windows Live team

We love getting your feedback here, as we use it to improve Windows Live. For your own safety, please don’t post personal contact info. We’re sorry, but due to the volume of comments, we cannot contact you individually or respond to most comments. If you need help, please use the “Go get help” links at top of the blog, and we’ll try to respond to frequently asked questions not covered there.

If you're a regular visitor to our blog, you may have noticed things look a little different here today. What do you think?

Yes, there's a nice new header, we've rearranged things a little, and we've added new places at the top for featured blog posts, videos, and help links. There's also a new Download button, and a list of recent blog posts. We hope that all of these will help you find what you came here for more quickly than before.

A less noticeable, but perhaps more important change is the comments policy now posted to the right. There's been some confusion about our comments policy, since this wasn't openly posted anywhere before. Some people thought we were deleting negative comments to make our stuff look better (we don't). Others thought the comments area was an open chat room, for any topic you might want to bring up (you can have some great conversations here, but we do hope you'll focus mainly on Windows Live and related stuff in the blog). Still others thought this was a kind of Support Forum, and were justifiably frustrated when questions they asked here weren't promptly answered by Microsoft support staff. We honestly do try to jump in and answer questions about new stuff that isn’t covered in Help yet, and we read your comments to see what you like and don’t like about Windows Live, so that we know what changes are needed most. But if you need help, the best places to find it are all listed above, under “Go get help.”

The Windows Live team blog is a place to get the latest news and updates about Windows Live, pick up a few useful tips, and read stories about how real people (those of us on the Windows Live team) use Windows Live in our daily lives. Through your comments, it's also a place for us to get an informal read on what you think about the latest updates, and for you to exchange your own stories, tips, and ideas for making Windows Live better with us and with each other.

We really do love reading your comments, and we really do use them to help us decide what to do in the next Windows Live release. If you feel strongly about a particular feature or lack thereof, you can also send us feedback at http://feedback.live.com/default.aspx. If you need help, please use the Help links at the top of this page.

I hope you like our new look, and I look forward to more great conversations with you here on the blog.

- Antonia and the Windows Live team

P.S. If you don't see the changes yet, go to the main blog page here: http://windowslivewire.spaces.live.com/

Some of you may have experienced an unusual message when you tried to sign in to Windows Live earlier this (Thursday) evening (PST), a message that said “You don’t have an inbox…yet.”

Rest assured that your inbox is safe!

The incorrect message was sent out, caused by a networking issue that we encountered while doing routine maintenance.

We have corrected the problem and you should be able to access your Hotmail and other Windows Live services again now. We apologize for any inconvenience that was caused by this issue, and we thank you for using Windows Live.

- The Windows Live team

UPDATE, 11:19 PM PST: Some of you are still reporting problems signing in. Our staff is working on getting the sign-in problem fixed as soon as possible. As stated above, if you are seeing a message that you “don’t have an inbox,” the message is incorrect. Your messages are still intact on our servers, and you will have access to them again as soon as this temporary outage is resolved.

UPDATE, 11:25 PM PST: All Hotmail services are back to normal and the outage is resolved.  If you are still having problems, we encourage you to first try Windows Live Help. If you still have problems, you can submit your problem directly to the support team. We apologize again for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused.

I love it when my friends “liveblog” so I get on-the-spot updates from them. What’s liveblogging? It’s sending out updates about what you’re doing, as you’re doing it. Twitter is a popular way to liveblog from anywhere (and you can add Twitter to your Windows Live profile if you like). But it’s also liveblogging when my friend posts photos and comments on their space about the latest sold-out blockbuster or video-game launch while still standing in line. Or when another friend posts videos of their newborn baby to SkyDrive before they even leave the hospital. Whatever and however they publish their news, I can see it as it happens in the What’s new list because I’m in their network on Windows Live. Getting this kind of immediate information lets me feel involved with their lives even when I’m busy with my own hectic schedule and can’t sit down and look at their latest pictures over coffee.

I wanted to liveblog to my friends from Windows Live too. I know it’s crazy, but people want to know what I’ve been up to just as much as I want to know what’s up with them! Go figure! I found out it’s really easy to publish new blog entries on Windows Live with the Spaces e-mail publishing option.

With e-mail publishing, my Windows Live space has a secret e-mail address. When I want to post to my blog, I just compose an e-mail of my blog post, including pictures, and then send it to the secret e-mail address using the e-mail program on my mobile phone!

I’ve also created secret e-mail addresses for my photo albums on Windows Live. With these e-mail addresses set up and turned on, everything I send to the shared photo albums stored on SkyDrive also appears in “What’s new with Sylvia” on my profile, and the people I choose see it in “What’s new with your network.”

Before you hit the road all ready to liveblog too, you'll need to turn on e-mail publishing for your space:

1. Browse to Windows Live Spaces at http://spaces.live.com and sign in with your Windows Live ID.
2. Click Customize your space, click Options, and then click E-mail publishing.
3. Select the check box for Turn on e-mail publishing.
4. Enter up to three e-mail addresses that you want to use to post to your blog. This is a safeguard to ensure that nobody else can post to your blog, even if your “secret e-mail address” for e-mail publishing falls into the wrong hands. But if you have a work e-mail address and a home address, and you want to be able to post from either one, you can enter both of those e-mail addresses here.
5. Choose a secret word. This is a password, another way to make sure that only you can post to your blog.
6. If you want, you can also choose photo albums to publish to. Each album will have its own e-mail address so you can e-mail photos right to that album from your phone or PC.
7. If you want to review your post before it’s published, under “Select your blog publishing option,” choose Save entries as draft. If you’re feeling lucky, choose Publish entries immediately.
8. Save your changes, and be sure to save these hard-to-remember e-mail addresses to your Hotmail contacts with an easy-to-remember name like My Blog or My Vacation Photos.

Now that you have e-mail publishing turned on, whenever you want to post to your blog, you just write an e-mail, and send it to your space's secret e-mail address.

If you chose to publish entries immediately, you should see your post right away on your blog and in “What’s new” on your profile page. If you chose to save your entries as drafts, you'll need to sign in to your space and publish the entries before they’re posted.

Happy liveblogging!

- Sylvia
   Writer, Windows Live team

Earlier today, Messenger customers may have received an instant message that looked like this:

We sincerely apologize, but this was accidentally sent out.  If you received this notification today, please ignore it.  You will be able to continue to use your current e-mail address, and there is no reason to make any changes. 

If you have already clicked the link, there is no harm to you.  You should have been told that your “Windows Live ID can’t be changed at this time” because there is no need for the change.

These service notifications are only used for urgent issues but unfortunately, somebody made a mistake that caused this message to be sent out.  We will definitely be reviewing our process to make sure we avoid such mistakes in the future.

Again, we’re very sorry for any confusion that may have been caused. 

- Windows Live Team

Howdy, I’m Ian Tien, part of the Windows Live product management team here in sunny Redmond, Washington, USA.

Ever wanted to share a picture straight from your mobile phone? Without having to enter a bunch of e-mail address and without needing any cables or even a PC?

I have.

I take pictures from my phone all the time, and I LOVE getting them on the web in a snap.

One time, the fire alarm went off in the Microsoft building where I work and we stopped all the very important things we were doing—like blogging about our mother-in-laws and flexing atop mountains—and went outside to watch half a dozen fire trucks come to save us.

Fire trucks at my building—thank you City of Redmond! Turned out a ventilation fan overheated and set off the alarms.

Another time, I went over to the cafeteria of the Microsoft Surface team to demo Windows Live as part of Windows 7 and I made a totally awesome poster:

Picture of my poster for my demo in the Microsoft Surface cafeteria.

Then there was the time my buddy Lonn organized a curling trip for the whole Windows Live product management team at the Granite Curling Club in Seattle. Fun times :)   

Windows Live product managers curling in Seattle. Despite some close calls, no one was seriously injured.

And then there are days like today, where it’s just a wonderful afternoon and I want to take a picture from the window outside my office:

View from window outside my office. In the distance are the Cascade mountains.

After taking each of these pictures with my mobile phone, it’s just a couple of clicks to send them to Windows Live where they are easily displayed, shared, downloaded, and even printed as I choose.

Ready to try it out?

Here’s how:

1. Sign in to Windows Live (or get an account if you don’t have one).
2. Go to home.live.com.
3. Click Options, click More Options, and then click E-mail Publishing.
4. Follow the instructions to set up e-mail publishing.

From then on, publishing your photos and comments online is as easy as sending mail. Many phones can be set up to do this in just a couple of clicks, so check out the menus on your mobile phone for more info.

All this works with my trusty T-Mobile Shadow phone running Windows Mobile. But it also works from BlackBerry devices, MacBooks, and iPhones—or any device that can e-mail photos!

The album (on photos.live.com) where I send my mobile photos by default.

Snazzy slide show of my mobile photos with a frame color that automatically complements each photo.

My friends and I can download all my mobile photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery to organize, edit, and manage them.

Windows Live Writer, the program I use to create blog posts (like this one!) incorporating mobile photos I’ve previously shared. Writer is great because it lets you easily play with photo borders.

By sharing my mobile photos on Windows Live, my friends see what I’m up to, I tell stories with pictures, plus if—heaven forbid—something happens to my phone, I have copies of all my “digital memories” on Windows Live.

Okay, now the big question: How many photos can I share?

Well… Windows Live SkyDrive offers 25 GB of photos and my phone takes pictures that are about 0.5 MB in size. So that’s about 50,000 photos. If I share one mobile photo a day—every single day—that’s…

enough space for 137 years worth of daily photos.

That’s a lot of FREE space for your stuff!

Get it free on the one and only WINDOWS LIVE!

…best enjoyed responsibly,

- Ian Tien

Windows Live Product Management Team

Last week members of one of my favorite bands, Soundgarden, played a surprise set at a benefit show. I wanted to share my good fortune with my friends, and let people know how much I love this band, so I added them to “Favorite things” on my profile page.

A few of the bands, books, and movies that I love

I clicked the favorite thing I wanted to add (Music), and typed in the band’s name. Then I clicked Search to find an image of the band, and wrote a short comment about why I love them. This was my chance to let the world know (or just my buddies—you can set the permissions for favorite things as open or as private as you want) that I’d just seen them play a show at a local club. Unreal!

 
After I added them, the image and what I wrote about them showed up in my favorite things. “Of course!” you say. What’s even better is that it got sent out to all the people in my network, who get my “what’s new” updates. “Of course!” you say again. I know. But what’s even better than that is that there’s a little heart icon that appears for everyone else. If they love this band as much as I do—or even if they just like them—they can click the heart to add it to their own favorite things. Pretty sweet.

My love for the band gets sent out to everyone in my network

So...have you read a good book recently? Seen an awesome movie that everyone should know about? How about that band that you still listen to—and just saw again—after all of these years?

Add them to your favorite things, and let people dig a little deeper into who and what shaped you, and what you’re into right now. It’s an easy way to share the things you love most.

*Updated (April 24, 2009): Currently, image search in favorite things is only available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Germany.

- Todd Colfelt
  The Windows Live team

Here are a few new feature ideas that we’ve been working on and hope to deliver to you in the next version of Windows Live:

• Windows Live Toolbar: New button, “Call Bill!” instantly calls Bill Gates to your side, so he can solve all computer problems as they arise.
• Windows Live Profile: Ever wish you could be several places at once? With the new CloneMe feature on Widows Live Profile, now you can!
• Windows Live Photo Gallery OI (optical implant edition): Surgically implanted onto your retina, now you can enjoy a steady stream of your favorite photos, sent via RSS feed from Photo Gallery to your brain!
• Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail are working on new partnerships with the national postal service in several markets. This opt-in program will allow you to get all your mail scanned and delivered to you via Messenger or Hotmail - your choice! Conversely, if you prefer paper, you can request to have all instant messages and e-mail printed and delivered to your postal mailbox (postage stamp charges apply).
• Windows Live Family Safety: Announcing important new partnerships with several major nanny services and, for better control of the teens in your family, an all new wiretapping service.
• Windows Live Photo Gallery: Tired of the dreary winter scene outside your windows? Spring taking too long to arrive? Use Panoramic Stitch with new MegaPrint options to create beautiful scenic wraps of your Florida vacation that completely encircle your home.

Do you have more ideas for new features you’d like to see in Windows Live? Let us know, and we’ll get right on them.

What day is it again? Oh yeah, April 1^st.