Recently a new third-party Windows Live Messenger app was released on the Windows Phone Marketplace – called Li’Messenger. This app is created by C&R Holdings Limited and is completely free (and free of ads!) for WP7 users to download. On first look, the app looks even better than the Microsoft-enlisted "official" app Messenger by Miyowa. Here’s a couple of screenshots of this new app:

In fact, from using it for several hours, its feature set seems far better than Messenger by Miyowa. For one, Li’Messenger supports Facebook chat, and most important of all, this app supports Multiple Points of Presence (MPOP), meaning that signing in to Messenger via this app on your WP7 will not sign you out of all other places you’re currently signed in to. With Windows Live Messenger being supported on so many places (on PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads, Mobile phones, Zunes, Web Messenger, and even on your Xbox), it is no doubt you’ll be signed in to multiple places at once, and as such MPOP is probably one of the key feature of a mobile Messenger app.

However, there are certain drawbacks with the product. Given it is a V1 product, Li’Messenger is currently lacking notifications when you receive an instant message. The C&R team explains that this is for security and privacy reasons as the app connects directly to the Windows Live servers (without any intermediary servers – required for notifications on WP7).

Of course, we are eagerly waiting for Microsoft to come up with an actual official Windows Live Messenger app for WP7 that integrates tightly and natively within the operating system. Only this way that it will truly integrate with the People hub and allows the app to run in the background.

You can get Li’Messenger on the Windows Phone Marketplace for free here.

Update: Seems like the app got taken off the marketplace, with WMPowerUser.com saying the developers were asked to remove the app from marketplace, possibly due to trademark issues. Hopefully it will come back soon!