Windows Live Wave 3 feature complete: Profile, People, Photos, Home added to the mix

So far, Windows Live has meant what’s now called Windows Live Essentials, the suite of downloadable software (Live Mail, Writer, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker) for a while now, since the Wave 3 beta opened up in September. But the desktop downloads are only half of Windows Live, and now for the first time we’re about to get our hands on the online bits: Profile, People, Photos, Home.Live.com, and more.

Like the Essentials suite of desktop services, the online portion of Windows Live can be thought of as a suite of services.  The first thing you will notice is that through the Wave 3 header, which we’ve been showing you for some time, you are able to get to any of the Windows Live services from wherever you are in Windows Live:

wl1 Home.Live.com

Setting Home.Live.com as a home page allows you to quickly move from service to service,

 wl2 Profile

checking up on What’s new (including Flickr, Twitter messages, WordPress blog posts, iLike selections, a number of Windows Live related web activities, and many more), checking your mail,

wl3 Hotmail

and while we’re on mail, you’re now able to log in to a web version of Messenger from within Hotmail:

wl5

Web Messenger features MPOP, so you can be logged in to multiple points of presence, and while the experience isn’t quite the full Messenger experience, this could be very useful when at work or on the road and needing to conduct a quick messenger chat.

In separate posts, we’ll take a closer look at Photos and People, and talk to Windows Live General Manager Brian Hall.

Comments

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/orionll/default.aspx orionll

    Sounds good!

    Can’t wait to try all this!

    (although, I’ll probably be last, again)

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/Alber1690/default.aspx Alber1690

    Don’t fret Orionll, you’re eons ahead of us MSN Premium subscribers.

    I might seem like a big whiner when it comes to how Microsoft is treating paying MSN Premium users with Windows Live, but common! When you pay for something that is more commonly available for free, you expect perks, or at least what a free account offers. Sure I have a free Live account, but my main and personal account, the one I care about, is stuck in an MSN era that offers me broken links and continuing “the future is coming” upgrade notifications, which never deliver. We were promised the Windows Live Wave 2 Hotmail experience by the end of the last year. One year later, same notification. I feel forgotten. And…I’m also starting to feel like the end of MSN Premium is very near.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/kbhasi/default.aspx kbhasi

    Cool! I’ll look out for it in my msn.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/Jamie/default.aspx Jamie

    you neglected Spaces – they should have a update soon and i no fortune teller lol just going on probability!

    this new batch of fun i see myself near the end again as what happened to my accounts with the recent wave 3P1 hotmail upgrade (Butterflies and as mentioned before Premium seem on low priorities) but I were lucky to have a preview in the accidental switch on of the beta server for Home at least so got a idea how that is.

    at least we HOPE to have Groups on Monday but ‘Group’ Calendar does works buggy (hopes that launch to plan) but technologically companies lately have had a habit of going past there proposed dates (WordPress – 10 Nov 2.7RC or 2.7! and Vreel Beta 2 [an HD video site) amongst others

    maybe i might get a xmas or new years (eve) treat from LiveSanta (lol) and have these new features by then :)

  • http://www.levidesigns.co.uk levi3man

    i already have the messenger in hotmail feature on my email account, i facedbooked hoffman about it on his wall, sorry for that, i will keep windows live stuff to liveside instead of facebook Harrison. i got over excited.

    i see they are using the new messenger icon in the picture above. as yet mesenger in hotmail i using the yellow streakless version we all know.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/BV2312/default.aspx BV2312

    WL Alerts anyone? WL Favs has moved to skydrive according to their recent post