Microsoft’s social networking strategy around Windows Live gets a little more meat on the bone today. In November they announced a new strategy that brings in activity streams, FriendFeed/Plaxo style, into a Windows Live home page. The goal is to give users a view of what their friends are up to on various social networks around the Internet. A list of the current partners is in the image below.
Today Microsoft will announce a number of new data partners, including Facebook, Digg, Last.fm, SmugMug, TypePad and Yandex. This is, apparently, the first time Facebook feeds can be pulled into a third party service (we talked about this last month). The full list of new partners is below.
Also, Microsoft has made some headway on their Contact Interchange product that pulls in friend data from various social networks (we questioned whether it violated the Facebook terms of use last year). Today Microsoft will announce the addition of MySpace, Hi5 and Tagged to the product, joining Facebook and LinkedIn. This is a two way relationship that allows users to pull their Windows Live contacts into those services as well.
The full list of new partners:
MSN: Microsoft Network
Arto (Freeway): Denmark
Bilddagboken.se: Sweden
Dada: Italy
Dailymotion: France
Digg: USA
FaceBook: USA
Fotolog: France
Hevre: Italy
Hyves: Netherlands
Last.fm: UK
Live Journal: Russia
MClub (GMedia): China
Metroflog: Argentina
Overblog: France
SmugMug: USA
TypePad (SixApart): USA
Yandex: Russia
zoo.gr: Greece
Current Partners:
More screenshots:
This is good news that Window Live is attracting more users by adding more features on it’s Home page.What is the future of Social media & Networking?
What is the future of Social media and Networking?
Better, comprehensive, and consolidated search. Http://www.yauba.com already does this quite well and Google is moving in this direction as well.
Microsoft is distributing money to startups this way???
but Microsoft is still losing the online war and is behind in virtually every aspect of web 2.0 http://iamned.com/blog/ no more recession
How?
cuz Microsoft only has 3% search market share and no web 2.0 properties. The only thing going for it is hotmail and online gaming which is over a decade old.
You are not serious right? Aren’t these two very different topics? Social networking and Search business?
Let’s give them some credit for how they are trying to consolidate. In fact, I like it a lot. How they fair in the search battle can be kept seperate
It’s fun seeing ignorant idiots like you comment.
@Nick, @Timi, @technotopia…
regarding Live Search, I have been finding it getting better day by day and now 9/10 times, I see same 5 results for any search in Live and Goog…
I am excited for Web Activities – which brings web social networking 1 step ahead…. this si simply AWESOME…! Keep em coming MS….
decade old? LOL! Windows Live Hotmail has the highest number of subscribers buddy. Windows Live Messenger knocks every other IM service out of the park in terms of number of users.
ROFL! Get your info right.
What the F are you talking about? Tell me, what constitutes a “web 2.0 property”?
I echo Nick’s comment above.
Will I be able to add my Facebook photos to Messenger?
Hevre is Israel and not Italy !
It’s nice to see that MS is opening up their services and allowing integration of other apps. Instead of them creating their own and re-inventing the wheel. Hopefully it will attract more users for them.
All about Microsoft @ http://search.m...=Microsoft#1323
The mention of MS Contact Interchange gets the meat of the most exciting upcoming war….gmail, yahoomail and hotmail’s most powerful bargining chip that stands in the middle of any standardization.
This article makes an interesting story ou of MS bartering email addresses for feeds in a pre-standards environment. Yet, there’s enough data out there already to provoke dozens of start ups and every major portal to start their friendfeed-esqu feed of feeds. There’s nothing too proprietary here and should not be used as a business model.
Containers of data are what we should keep our eyes on. How does one take their ’stuff’ around with them? Above the fray. Place your bets on companies who can take advantage of making a compelling coherent experience out of all this distributed data – and who can weather the current single-sign on competition. Find a company who can take all the APIs and single-sign ons and wrap them into a compelling user experience and generate utility and a sense of privacy…i have found that company – and thus why i pour my life into mEgo.com. We’ll take any and all single-sign ins, just keep giving us the data.
Doesn’t FriendFeed also pull in Facebook feeds already?
p.s., these user experience in setting up your ‘web activities’ is quite obscure…the theoretical promise is far stronger than the practical implementation.
They’re adding sites I’ve never heard of before… where’s Google Reader?
not everyone in the world lives in the United States – you may have never heard of these sites but for some people in the world these sites are more relevant than facebook – that is the beauty of windows live, that it reaches people all over the world
Very timely, although with friendconnect and Googles fleet of superior ships I wonder how long it will be before MSN is dead in the water.
They had many international partners don’t they? Never even heard more than half of the announced 20 services. FriendFeed still had better catalog of service to pull from.
And the invite, it wouldn’t update data from each others either right ? Only for invitation.
Micro not so soft..LOL
This is great news that Window Live is attracting more users by adding more features on it’s Home page. window live has great features.
Frustrating that they’re locked out by region; Facebook and Digg only available in the US, why ? I have Pandora available instead of Last.fm, even more random considering that Pandora isn’t available here.
They’re locked out by region? WTF?
Live has some nice features, I have a few qualms with it:
1) If you allow images to be public, you can’t allow commenting by only friends or moderate comments before they appear. There’s also no notification you received a comment or any central place to manage them.
2) The nested photo albums are nice, something facebook and myspace could use. I don’t like the 255 character limit though on photo captions and album descriptions, 1000 would be more sensible. Myspace has ~140 character limit. Facebook is superior in this aspect.
3) Live spaces as a blog platform leaves a bit to be desired. I’d much rather see them integrate something like wordpress the same way friendster did.
4) Give us a public listing/search of public groups to join. This is a huge aspect lacking.
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