posted by Eric

Hey There Readers,

Eric from the Spaces team guest blogging today. I wanted to share my thoughts on a relatively new Messenger feature that I’ve really been digging lately – “Music Mix”. In case you haven’t discovered it yourself, “Music Mix” allows you and a buddy listen to a shared music playlist simultaneously.

For example my old friend Scott, who is a huge music fan, lives in New Jersey and I live in Seattle. We chat on Messenger all the time. Now with “Music Mix” he can play me all the cool new songs he’s been listening to right from a Messenger window and I can share my favorite tracks instantly with him. It’s like having your own little private jukebox. Both people can add songs to the “Music Mix”, fast forward or rewind and the changes will instantly be mirrored on each other’s mix. So if one person declared “whoa, awesome drum solo” the other would have just heard said awesome solo at the same time.

To start listening to music with your friends click on the Activities tab and select “Music Mix”.

Here I am schooling my pal Rob on some classic Prince:

And if you want to share a playlist of songs you are particularly proud of you can create a Music List on Windows Live Spaces. You can make this list look extra cool by adding album covers from Amazon.com (note: this part is only available in some markets).

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If you have thoughts on this post or "Music Mix" feel free to leave a comment. For other questions/concerns/discussion topics/rants/raves/etc - please head over to the Windows Live Messenger Newsgroup.

posted by Aaron

Steven told everyone about the “i’m Making a Difference” group on Facebook this past Wednesday. I’m pleased to announce the winning cause organization is the Humane Society of the United States! Over 50,000 people joined the challenge with the HSUS receiving the most votes. It is our privilege to present a $50,000 donation in honor of Windows Live on behalf of the Facebook group and its members!

The Humane Society has been working since 1954 to celebrate animals and confront cruelty in all its forms. As the nation’s largest and most powerful animal protection organization, they work tirelessly to advocate for a population unable to advocate for itself. We hope this contribution helps them continue their great work.

To everyone that joined the group: Thank you! Thank you for joining, thank you for telling your friends, and thank you all for speaking out passionately on the wall and the message boards. Together, we are truly making a difference!

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If you have a comment on this post please comment! For other questions/concerns/discussion topics/rants/raves/etc - please head over to the Windows Live Messenger Newsgroup.

Hey people: It is time for another great release of Messenger as well as all of the Windows Live suite of applications and services. This is our biggest and best release to date and I want to make sure you have the latest versions of all of our great applications including Messenger, Mail, Writer and Photo Gallery.

Secondly, I want to make sure that you have joined us in the i’m initiative, which gives real dollars to important charities like UNICEF, The Sierra Club, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and others. In November and December Microsoft will double the donations when you IM for a cause.

Also, if you haven’t already, go to Facebook and join the i’m MAKING A DIFFERENCE group to help us meet our Challenge Grant of donating $50,000 to celebrate the launch of new Windows Live suite. You can even vote on who gets the money! You must join the group by Friday, November 11^th though.

The creative people that thought up the i’m Making a Difference campaign are coming up with new ways for people to get involved with this great initiative. Now comes the part where students get to be involved and tell their story of how they support local and worldwide social causes. Windows Live Messenger has teamed up with mtvU to bring you a new reality series based on the lives of student activists. You can go to IM.LIVE.COM to watch the show. In each episode they will be profiling a different student leader, and you can see how they are using the power of the internet and Messenger (of course!) to change the world.

note: currently the donation only applies to Windows Live Messenger users in the United States. If you are in the US and you are IMing with a contact in another country your IM activity will be counted towards the donation.

 posted by Casey

Hi everyone!  My name is Casey and I'm a new Program Manager on the Windows Live™ Messenger Server team.  This is my first post on MessengerSays, and I am super excited to share with you a brand new feature called the Windows Live™ Messenger IM Control!

The Windows Live™ Messenger IM Control lets people on the Web reach you in Messenger by showing your Messenger status on your web site, blog, or social networking profile. The Windows Live™ Messenger IM Control runs in the browser and lets site visitors message you without installing Messenger first. The IM Control is supported in IE6, IE7, and Firefox 2.0 on Windows and Firefox 2.0 on Mac OS. The IM Control is supported in 32 languages.

This is a nice addition to the IM button functionality announced in Ali's post.  An important difference between the two is that the new Windows Live™ Messenger IM Control allows people to send you IMs without installing Windows Live™ Messenger, and the IM button requires that they have it installed and are logged in.

To use the IM Control:

1. Go to http://settings.messenger.live.com/applications/websettings.aspx. Sign in with your Windows Live ID as needed.

2. Turn on your Web settings to show your presence and receive IM from the Web. Note that if you turn on Web settings, anybody on the Web who has permissions to view your web site can see your presence and send you IM messages.  Since we are dedicated to protecting children and Family Safety Settings users from receiving IM messages from users they don't know, children and FSS users aren't eligible to sign up for this feature.

3. Pick a way to show your presence.  I decided that I wanted to add an IM Control to my Space, so I chose Messenger.

4. Copy the HTML from the page and post it on your Web site.  Since I added the IM Control to my Space, I added a Custom HTML Module, as shown in the screen shot below.

5. When a visitor comes to your page, they can see your presence, and click on “Begin a conversation” to start sending you IM.

Testing the IM Control

1. You can test the IM Control right from the Copy HTML page: http://settings.messenger.live.com/applications/CreateHtml.aspx

2. Note that you cannot IM yourself from the Web (just as you can’t IM yourself in the Messenger client). To test sending a message to yourself, you can “Sign in with a different account” or “Send anonymous message.”

I decided to “Send anonymous message” to myself, and I left my name as the default, “Visitor.”  I was required to pass a HIP Challenge (one of those character recognition tests) which helps to protect IM Control users from spam messages.  Then I sent a message, and I can see that Casey (myself, logged in to the Windows Live™ Messenger PC Client) is writing a message back!

On the Windows Live™ Messenger PC Client, the IM appears as if it was sent from Visitor.

Back in the IM Control, I receive Casey's response and I can see the timestamp from when the last message was received.

3. The IM Control lets anybody on the Web IM you. If somebody you don’t know sends you a message, you will see a warning like below in Messenger. The IM Control lets people you don’t know reach you. If you don’t want people you don’t know to send you messages, then don’t allow messages such as this one, or restrict the permission setting on your web site to allow fewer or more trusted users. If you want to always enable new users to IM you from the IM Control, then allow messages from unknown senders.

That should be all you need to get started, so go!  Generate some HTML, plant an IM Control wherever you please, and start chatting with visitors from the web!

After months of work, and two beta releases the Windows Live Messenger team is proud to release Windows Live Messenger 8.5! We’ve listened to the feedback from our beta users and made this one of the best versions of Messenger ever!

If you were a beta user not much has changed for you. We worked hard to improve the overall quality of Messenger though, and we owe a big ‘Thanks!!’ to all of the beta testers that sent us feedback. If you haven’t been a beta tester you can read Nicole’s post about the new features in 8.5.

Windows Live Messenger isn’t the only program getting released today. In fact a lot of Windows Live products are celebrating a new launch today. Be sure and check out the blogs of Mail, Photo Gallery, and Writer for all of the new features, then go Get Windows Live!

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If you have a comment on this post please comment! For other questions/concerns/discussion topics/rants/raves/etc - please head over to the Windows Live Messenger Newsgroup.