Postkiwi Duncan Macleod

I received an invitation from a friend yesterday to sign up with Microsoft’s new Messenger software: Windows Live Messenger. It’s version 8, designed to replace MSN Messenger 7.5. So of course I signed up, curious to see what Microsoft’s up to.

What’s different?

1. New Colour Scheme. There’s a bright orange bar at the top though apparently I can change the colour. The icons for online people are green. Offline people are white. Away people are light green.

2. Contacts. All the email addresses in my Hotmail database are listed in Messenger. There’s an internal search engine for finding people so that’s OK. I now have the capacity to rename my contacts, which is very handy in some cases. I can also edit my contacts’ information. The capacity to add tags to contacts gives more flexibility in arrangement.

3. Nine MSN videos are previewed at the bottom. The shortcuts to integrated services are still down the side, but in a slightly less cute rendition. Alerts, Emoticons, Teen Stuff, Ebay, Music Downloads, Lavalife Personals, Meegos Dynamic Display Pictures, Shopping, Travel, Mobile Central, Games, Movies, National Nine News, and Seek.com.

4. Offline Instant Messaging.

5. As before there’s the capacity for real-time text, video and voice conversation. The icon for ‘Call Computer’ and ‘Start Video Conversation’ are more accessible.

6. A free virus scanner designed for Messenger.

7. This is no longer part of the MSN branding. No more butterfly.

Sign Up

At this point Live Messenger is only being offered through personal invitation – a bit like the Google Mail rollout. I get the impression they’ve learnt from Google’s experience and are only giving invitation capacity to people who’ve been signed up for a while. One thing to watch though. If one member of the family signs up with Messenger 8, the rest of the family won’t be able to use the software until they’ve also been invited. And in the meantime Messenger 7.5 will have disappeared. You’ll have to resort to using Windows Messenger.

Live Messenger is part of the Windows Live, a new integrated platform being developed by Microsoft. It’s written up at available is Windows Live Ideas. Microsoft is also offering a beta version of Windows Live Mail, an upgrade of Hotmail. To get more of an idea about Windows Live Messenger see Messenger Says – Windows Live Messenger Blog, featuring 6 of the staff who developed the software.