SMS: Windows Live

Check out Santa's blog

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 06:20:25 GMT

We have just launched our holiday campaign around Hotmail & Windows Live Spaces. Kids can now send Santa an email with the details of their holiday wish list and will get a response from Santa's Hotmail account. Ever wonder what's shaking with Santa as he prepares for the big day or wanted to get the dirt on Mrs Klaus, well now you can. Check out Santa's first post on his blog and stay on top of all the happenings in the north pole. You can also visit the site created by the Online Services Group, where you can get recipes, check out what's happening in Santa's workshop and even sign up for your own Hotmail account.

Send Santa your wish list via email and check out his blog, I certainly did!

Windows Live OneCare is a hit in the US

Sat, 19 Aug 2006 08:07:44 GMT

According to an article on News.com, Windows Live OneCare, the new antivirus & PC care software from Microsoft is making waves in the US retail market. The product has accounted for 15.4% of the security sales at major retailers according to NPD data. These are some incredible numbers in the first month of launch, however this can be attributed to the aggressive pricing that is in place. You can purchase WL OneCare for as low as US$19.95 compared to the competing products that are in the US$30-$50 price range. This shows that folks interested in purchasing security software are very price sensitive and do not have a lot of brand loyalty. With demand being price elastic, i imagine a series of price wars (or better termed “price promotions”) between the big players in the industry such as Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and Microsoft.

Windows Live Writer

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:30:41 GMT

I heard about WL Writer when I was reading Stephen's blog. I was intrigued by this service and after hearing all the buzz about it in the blogsphere, I thought I might as well try it out. I also checked out the team blog that had been created by the development team that built this service. Writer seems to have some cool features such as the WSIWYG editing feature but I love the fact that the dev team has provided an SDK that people can use to add cool features/content on their blogs.

I am trying out the product as I am composing this post in Writer and it's pretty slick. I am not sure of the business model around this product, I do not see any ads in the product and Writer team blog does not mention anything about this being a subscription product either. Regardless, I shall be using Writer to post going forward.

Windows Live Spaces launched in Canada

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 18:22:03 GMT

August 1^st marked the launch of Windows Live Spaces in Canada. WL Spaces is another compelling product that has been added to the Windows Live suite of product/services. This is the next version MSN Spaces and marks a major release from a feature perspective.

Branding for the product has been changed to reflect the new Windows Live brand. However, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. The Windows logo in the top left hand header also allows you to seamlessly access other Live services launched in Canada.

The Friends of Friends feature (FoF) allows you to add a module that lists all your friend’s Spaces. A visitor to your Space and view other people’s Spaces my clicking on them in the FoF module. This is very similar to the functionality in MySpace, however there is one important difference. Users have the flexibility to set permissions that determines who is permitted to view their Space. This type of control is great, especially for parents who are concerned about strangers viewing their kids Space. This functionality makes it easier for people to expand their network by linking to other people through their friends.

The integration of WL Spaces with other WL services is amazing and helps deliver on the Windows Live brand promise. You can access a person’s profile, chat with them on Messenger, Update your personal message on Messenger and access various other WL services through your Space. In addition, you can also sign up for Spaces Live Alerts, which will update you if a Space you are following has been updated. This alert shows up as a toast on your WL Messenger.

You can further personalize your Space by adding gadgets to it. There are over 260 gadgets on Windows Live gallery and you can pick your favourite ones to add to your space.

Although the WL Spaces product is great, there were some issues with the rollout. The Spaces team is very transparent and humble about the challenges they faced during the rollout on Space Craft (their team blog). There was a 12 hour outage during the upgrade to Windows Live Spaces. This type of communication is a clear indication that Microsoft is communicating with its customers in a frank, open and humble way. Kudos to the Space product team for their attitude!

Visit The Space Craft (Spaces team blog ) to find out the latest and greatest on this product. Moz, the Global Product Manager responsible for Space has also authored quite a lengthy post on his blog on the launch of Windows Live Spaces.

Windows Live Favorites

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:12:14 GMT

This one will be a quick post. I finally tried WL Favorites and had to quickly blog about it. Have any of you tired it out, if so, let me know what you think of the product?

At the most basic level, WL Favorites allows your bookmarks or IE Favorites to roam with you. The service is a free service and will allow people to access their bookmarks from any computer in world. You can import your Favorites from your IE browser with a few clicks of the mouse. You can also configure your settings so IE and WL favorites are always in sync.

The integration of WL Favorites with other WL services really helps in improving discoverability of this service and provides you easy access to your Favorites info. You can access your Favorites through a tab on WL Messenger. You can also add a WL Favorites module to you MSN Space, this allows you to share your Favorites with visitors to your Space. WL Favorites is also accessible via a gadget on Live.com. You can add a list of interesting or most popular locations from Live Local to your WL Favorites profile. If that’s not enough, your Favorites can also be synchronized between IE and the Favorites profile to ensure that you can access the latest set from anywhere. I love the integration of this product with others in the WL ecosystem. It really delivers on the WL promise of unifying your online world through the seamless integration with other WL services.

Check out the product and let me know what you think.