January 2006 - LiveSide - News blog

Microsoft Office Live is just around the corner. Whether you asked to be part of our beta late last year, or just last week, we want to thank you for your patience. We've been working hard to build these exciting new services. We trust you'll find them worth the wait.

What is Microsoft Office Live? Microsoft Office Live consists of three different packages of online services, each designed with the small business owner in mind, that deliver remarkable new ways to grow and run your business online.* The best part - it's all FREE during beta.**

Domain name, Web hosting, company e-mail and more With Microsoft Office Live Basics you can start by claiming your own domain name (for example, northwindtraders.com) and, using our easy Site Designer tool, get a professional Web site up and running in minutes. Web traffic reports let you manage your own business Web site without being a Web expert. Company-branded e-mail accounts that match your business domain (for example, jsmith@northwindtraders.com) helps give your company the professional image it deserves.

Shared Sites and online business applications Microsoft Office Live Collaboration is ideal for any business where ongoing information sharing and collaboration are essential. Create your own Shared Sites to access and share information - even when you're on the go - using your company's own password-protected Web site.^ We also include a variety of online business applications so you can easily manage your customer, project, sales and company information, all in one place.

 

Web hosting, company e-mail, Shared Sites and more. With Microsoft Office Live Essentials, you get all the benefits of Office Live Basics and Office Live Collaboration, and more. Additional company e-mail accounts with enhanced access features, advanced Web traffic reports, and Microsoft Office FrontPage software support provide an all-in-one, comprehensive solution for growing and managing your business online.  

How will participants join the beta? Soon we'll be e-mailing invitations to qualified beta registrants. The invitations will include information on where to go to sign-up, along with a unique product key that lets you access our beta services. So stay tuned for future e-mails from your Microsoft Office Live Team.

Again, thanks for your patience and interest in the Microsoft Office Live beta.

Best Regards,

Your Microsoft Office Live Team
officelive.com

We posted this great FAQ that Scott Lovegrove has put together earlier, but I had to post it again. Scott has revamped the site to look like a Messenger Contact List and Conversation Window. Very cool concept and great content, so go check it out! 

View: Windows Live Messenger FAQ

Earlier today, Microsoft pushed an update to the Xbox 360 Dashboard through its Live service. The update takes, in total, about a minute. The version number of the Dashboard has been updated to 2.0.2255.0.

 Some speculated that this update would include the ability to download content from Xbox Live Marketplace in the background, so you would not have to watch the download meter slowly tick up. Unfortunately this feature is not included in this update, but according to Xbox.com, here is what is:

 - Improvements to the Xbox Guide.
 - Option to retain your saved games when you delete a profile.
 - Increased accuracy of "last time played."
 - Network configuration improvements for Xbox Live members in the Netherlands.
 - More detailed messaging for unreadable disk or region errors.

Of course the update is free to all Xbox Live members, both Silver and Gold. 

News source: Xbox.com 
News source: Major Nelson

A few days back I posted about Live Contacts, the new service that was released in beta form alongside Spaces 10.5. One thing I didn't mention though was its integration with existing Windows Live services.

To recap, Live Contacts allows you to publish personal and business information to specified contacts, and if they subscribe to it they will automatically see any changes you make. Outside of Spaces Live Contacts can already be found (with limited presence so far) in two Windows Live products, Mail and Messenger.

Assuming you have already subscribed to someone's Live Contact information, the back of their Messenger contact card will show the information they have published. If they have specified an address a link will appear on the contact card that when clicked will load a Live Local map at this location. Now you don't have to look stupid and ask to be reminded where someone on your contact list lives. Additionally, all phone numbers are hyperlinks that when clicked will launch Windows Live Call.

Mail integration is slightly less advanced at the moment, showing only the information you have subscribed to. However as with Live Contact integration in Messenger, you can expect this to develop as the product moves towards v1.

To be one of the first to use Live Contacts in Spaces, Messenger and Mail, click here to fill out your Live Contact info and then invite your friends to do the same.

Screenshot of Messenger integration
Setup Live Contacts (You need to be signed in to your Passport first)

Last night saw the first Windows Live Session in the UK, hosted at MSN London. Phil Holden gave some good demos of Windows Live beta products as well as outlining the history and intentions behind them. Several MSN UK staff were present too, some of whom had actually read LiveSide :-)

It would take to long to post everything that was discussed, I'll draw your attention to some key points:

 - Mail's best and worst feature is the new UI according to user feedback, so we will probably be seeing the introduction of a "Classic" layout. Think tickboxes and less AJAX. The team is also working on a horizontal preview pane, though we shall have to wait and see whether this makes the next public release. Expect to see the next build, M5, sometime within February.

- As noted by the guys at SearchChamps this week, there will be a minor update to Live.com within the next few days. Updates include embedded images displaying as thumbnails (Screenshot), better resizing of large images and some performance improvements as well. On top of that they are working on several new gadgets, one of which is an MSN InfoPanet gadget showing information about MSN services (similar to what is displayed on MSN.com.)

 - Expo (formerly Fremont) is looking beta ready, though there are still no ads on it yet due to the limited screen real-estate they have to play with. Dare I say it but maybe this will force them to introduce text ads. We shall have to wait and see. This service will be expanded to other email domains within the next month, so if you work for a large company in Seattle you might be in luck. Although the payment methods have yet to be finalised, Phil confirmed that Expo would not see the construction of a new Microsoft payment system. We were told that Expo integration with Spaces should happen within the next few weeks.

 - The Messenger Beta is continuing to expand rapidly, with over 200,000 users now participating. The team is still looking to scale this up some more, so if you want to try it out, signup here.

 - We got to see a non-working version of the Phillips Messenger phone. Despite being quite small, the screen is a good size. Microsoft is taking VOIP seriously, expect to see more developments in this area throughout this year.

I also took the opportunity to interview Phil about Windows Live. Although the mp3 isn't available yet, you can subscribe to our podcast feed. If you want your podcasting client to automatically retrieve any files we post, then you should subscribe to this.

Looking for a little more info on Spaces 10.5? A good place to start is with Karen Luk , a Spaces program manager who has posted three complementary entries, one on theming and the new themes available in 10.5, one on enhancing your very own revenue stream via Kanoodle and Amazon.com, and the third on some of the details of the 10.5 update.

We told you it was coming, and here it is. This evening marks the launch of MSN Spaces 10.5, the first major Spaces upgrade since its original launch in December of 2004. Here's what's new:

Live Contacts Aa great way to make sure your family, friends, and business colleagues always have your current contact information. With active contacts, you chose what information you wish to share and who to share it with.

Spaces Search Find Spaces based on keywords and interests

Create your own advertising As mentioned in an earlier entry, Spaces 10.5 will allow you to place ads, powered by Kanoodle, on your Space to make money. Amazon integration is also tied in with your Book Lists. This also allows you to make money through Amazon Associates.

Xbox Integration Spaces 10.5 allows you to add a Xbox Live GamerCard and Recently Played Games module to your space.

No more /members/ The days of typing that long url out are over. The new blog url's look like this: http://spaces.msn.com/harrison You can still use your old one and it will work, so no need to redo all of your links.

Expanded HTML Powertoy You've been pleading for it, and it's finally here. The Spaces team has doubled the number of characters allowed in the HTML Powertoy. T

hese features are just the start. There are tons of new features, improvements, and bug fixes included in this release. Check out Mike Torres' blog and the official Spaces blog, The Space Craft for complete information on the release. Also, I will be interviewing Mike about the release tomorrow and the interview should be up on LiveSide shortly thereafter.

Torres Talking
The Space Craft

In a press announcement yesterday, Microsoft revealed the formation of Live Labs, a partnership between Microsoft Research and MSN "that focuses on applied research for Internet products and services at Microsoft."

What is of great interest to users and the Live community are some of its areas of focus:
 - Rapid prototyping
 - Development of incubation projects
 - Community programs that connect to Live Labs

This is yet another bit of news coming out of Search Champs. Someone seriously needs to rename that event to take account of what it is today (not something just about Search!)

Live Labs (RSS) 

News source: Microsoft Press Announcement

The Full Auto demo is up and ready to be played, so go grab it!

After jumping on this story yesterday, a few small updates came to light. First was the possibility of multiple partners, including Amazon.com. Second was the removal of the Adult Content topic that allowed Spaces users to target the ads on their Space.

Now we just wait for the update...

Michael Arrington posts what he can from Search Champs, news about three not so new but still cool Windows Live features. Apparantly Sanaz (it's Ahari, Michael!) showed off some of the MCE Remote features in Live.com that BillG played with at the CES keynote, there was more on Expo, and gadgets are coming on strong, with soon to be available drag and drop gadgets from Live.com to the (yes, XP) desktop. It's fun to watch gadgets getting fleshed out, and there's so much more to come. Take a look at gadgets available for Live.com now at www.microsoftgadgets.com. And oh yeah, Live.com rss feeds will soon have pictures. Woohoo! 

News source: TechCrunch talks about new Windows Live stuff from MSN Search Champs

I posted yesterday about some of the things we can expect in the next update of Spaces, one of which was Live Contacts. This new service has two aspects to it.

Firstly, it allows a user to publish different information to different groups of people. Personal information can be available only to their Messenger contact list, for example, while business related information could be available publicly.

Secondly, it allows people who subscribe to your information to be automatically informed of any updates you make, be it via your Spaces profile or your Messenger and Mail Beta contact list. It is worth noting that users can view who has subscribed to their Live Contacts information.

Examples: If you move house, rather than telling your friends and family all your new details, you simply update your Live Contacts info and everybody is informed of the update. If you change your extension number at work, you update your Live Contacts info and colleagues will know your new number.

Contact managment is an important part of Windows Live; Live Contacts should help you to see the enormous potential there is for this set of products and why Microsoft was right to split services from content. Excited about Windows Live now? I hope so, its only the beginning!

Update: If you want to setup Live Contacts without creating an MSN Space, you can use the following link. There will be Messenger integration in the near future though :-)

In its imminent update, MSN Spaces is to partner with Kanoodle, in order to bring pay-per-click advertising opportunities to its users. Spaces that contain BrightAds integration can choose to display ads from a variety of areas, which notably includes Adult Content. Spaces that wish to display sponsored listings must however be publicly viewable and contain content that is in English. BrightAds also includes an RSS ad service, much like Google's Adsense for Feeds, however it still remains to be seen whether MSN will give users the option of utilizing this.

By offering its users ad revenue, MSN is encouraging them to keep their Spaces more active and promote it amongst their friends and family. The addition of this service also allows MSN to target their blogging rivals that permit AdSense integration, be it via hosted or non-hosted products.

Signup screenshot

Update: Apparently Kanoodle is only one of a number of advertising partners MSN is working with, seems like we missed the big one in the fact that Amazon.com will be working with them too. Now you know :)

This morning, several testers are reporting that Messenger auto-update has upgraded their version of the Messenger Beta client to build 369. Although we are unable to obtain the upgrade via this method, it appears as though the new build is mainly bug fixes.

You can find the seemingly obligatory "About" menu here.

Update: This appears to be only available for French testers at the moment, via http://g.msn.com/1csbeta/Mess80_FR. We'll let you know when its available to all.

Bink.nu posted some of the text of an email to Windows Live Favorites beta testers, setting the next update of the beta bits in the fourth week in January. WL Favorites (initially code-named Roaming Favorites), allows users to store their favorites folders online, giving them access to sometimes extensive lists of favorites on any computer with web access. A special shout-out to our own Chris Overd, who was singled out in the email (among others) for his contributions to the beta. Hopefully this will make him feel better after getting smacked on the nose for his latest post (below). (Just kidding, Chris!) 

News source: Windows Live Favorites email on Bink.nu