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

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