10 years ago today, MSN Messenger v1.0 was released to the world and users all around the world began downloading it via their 28.8/56.6k dial-up modems. :p.

Over the past few weeks we received an overwhelming number of fascinating stories from all of you on topics ranging from “How to propose using Messenger” to “How to use Messenger as a security camera”, all of which reminds us about why we love working on this product.

Windows Live Messenger is where it is today because of YOU, our users.  We couldn’t have done it without you and in return, we thought about hosting a party, but with 330 million of you to invite, I couldn’t convince any of the team members to hold it at their place. :)  Instead, you’ll have to settle for the next best thing… a homemade celebration video (nicely pasted to the left for your viewing pleasure).

Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.  Thank you for all your support over the past 10 years, and here’s to another 10! :)

After you’ve checked out the video, here are some things you can do to celebrate Messenger’s 10th anniversary with us:

• Visit our Messenger anniversary celebration site in the US or in the UK and download a special anniversary gift pack with free themes and emoticons.
• Send a Happy Anniversary IM to at least 10 of your friends and let them guess whose anniversary you’re celebrating (you can use a 10 Year Anniversary emoticon to make it a bit easier for them) 

Fun Fact – did you know that…

Messenger users come back to log-in to Windows Live Messenger on average 3 times a day. That is about as often as the average person would sit down to have a meal.

And when they log-in they send a *LOT* of messages to their friends and family! Let’s come back to our space travel example from yesterday:

People are trying to estimate how many stars we have in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The current estimate is approx 300 billion. For Messenger we don’t have to estimate, we have the numbers – could you have imagined that the average 9.4 billion messages that are sent per day add up to about 290 billion messages every month, which pretty much equals the estimated number of stars in our galaxy?!

Looking back to the early days of Windows Live Messenger – here is how one of our users remembers these days:

 Steve (USA): Early Days Experiences

I remember first using MSN Messenger back when I signed up for the MSN dial-up internet service in 1999.  At that time, I only had one friend who used MSN Messenger, and we would chat on the computer from time to time.

Shortly thereafter, as we got older and entered high school, so many more of my friends started signing up for Hotmail and MSN Messenger.

 One of my fondest memories is in my eighth grade year, when my friends had a study hall in the computer lab for the last period of the day.  We'd all get on MSN Messenger and have group chats.  Since at that time there was a limit as to how many people could be in one chat (I'm not sure if there still is or not), it was always a race to join the chat, and almost a privilege to be included in the conversation.

Chatting with each other while we all had headphones on listening to music, sharing links and transferring songs back and forth really made that study hall a blast.

Steve, USA

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY EVERYBODY!!!!

We have a special treat for today - Ten years ago tomorrow, Microsoft launched one of its most innovative communication services – Windows Live Messenger (then known as MSN Messenger). Throughout its many stages of evolution over the years, Windows Live Messenger – with 330 million users – has become the most widely used free instant messaging service in the world. To celebrate ten fantastic years, we asked Danny Glasser (Partner Development Manager, Windows Live), one of the founding members of the Windows Live Messenger team to share how Microsoft decided to launch Windows Live Messenger. Here’s his story:

In 1997, while working on Microsoft NetMeeting, Danny was dealing with a flaw in the product. Users of NetMeeting, an audiovisual communication client, were having trouble finding the people they wanted to talk to. This wasn’t exactly ideal for a service that billed itself as a collaboration tool, so the team set out to find a fix. The proposed solution: Enable NetMeeting users to maintain a list of the people they cared about, to be able to see when those contacts were online, and to be able to initiate NetMeeting calls easily with those contacts. It was dubbed the “Buddy List” project.

NetMeeting is no more, but what the team came up with ultimately became the world’s number one instant messaging service. Ten years ago today, MSN Messenger made its debut. “It definitely felt like we were working on something special,” said Danny. “I don’t know that I could have predicted accurately the number of people who would use it, but we had a feeling it would be a big thing.”

Looking back, Danny said he’s amazed at how huge Messenger has become. At the outset, scalability was one of the team’s biggest concerns. Inside the hallway of a building on Microsoft’s RedWest campus the team put up a real-time counter showing the number of simultaneous online connections (SOCs) around the clock. They started with tens of thousands and hit the 1 million mark after a year; today, Windows Live Messenger sees about 40 million SOCs.

“To see the influence we have had, not just at Microsoft and with customers, but the way it has affected people's lives, I’m very gratified to have played a part in it” says Danny.

Amazing work indeed! Happy anniversary and congratulations (and thank you) to the Messenger “v1 team” and everyone who has worked hard to make Windows Live Messenger what it is today!

It’s interesting to note that although NetMeeting is no more, people across the globe use Windows Live Messenger to chat during business meetings. Nearly a quarter (21 percent) of Americans recently surveyed use Messenger during business meetings; of those people, roughly 83 percent say they IM “fairly often” during meetings to make after-work plans.

While it’s interesting to visit Messenger’s beginnings it’s exciting to think about how far the product has come.  Over the past year,  Messenger has delivered a host of fun ways to communicate and share including new ways to share photos, personalize how you chat and stay up to date with what your friends are doing across the web, including on Facebook and Flickr.

Care for a fun fact for the anniversary?

(This one is also in honor of the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing.)

Imagine if a single-page letter was mailed for every one of the 1.6 billion Messenger sessions that happen every day. The individual pages lined up one after another would stack up to the moon within a day! The weight would weigh 33 times more than the Endeavor Space Shuttle (with boosters and tank).

And by the way, using Messenger instead saves 2.8 million trees every day.  :-)

The following story is a small example of what happens in the 1.6 billion sessions shared every day on Messenger.

Amanda (USA/Holland): a long distance love story

My name is Amanda and I live in Ohio. My Windows Live Messenger story starts in January of 2004.

I met a guy on a website and we swapped Windows Live Messenger screen names. Using chat and voice chat we talked for over 40 hours in just 4 days! It was the perfect way to stay in touch especially since I was in Ohio and he was in Den Haag Holland. The phone bill would have been insane without the messenger!

We talked each day using Windows Live Messenger and finally met face to face in April 2004 and we immediately got engaged. When he had to return to Holland we continued to keep in touch almost strictly using Windows Live and Hotmail.

In September 2004 he moved from Holland to Ohio so we could get married. I'll never forget how excited and happy I was when he told me he was finally going to move! It was the best day in both of our lives at that point!

We got married on November 20th, 2004 and had a daughter Prudence February 7th, 2006. This year we celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary and none of it wouldn't have been possible without the connection we made thanks to Windows Live Messenger!

We easily logged thousands of hours of chat, voice chat, and webcam between the time we met online and the time we were finally together!

Over 6000 miles separated us but the distance didn't seem quite so big when we could see and hear each other every day.

- Amanda (Ohio, USA)

That’s the question we asked Windows Live Messenger community celebrities Sunshine (Netherlands), RebelSean (USA), Kip (USA), Jonathan (Canada), mynetx (Germany) this week as part of our Messenger 10th Anniversary blog post series.  These guys (and girl) not only strive to help make the product better through participating in betas and providing enormous amounts of valuable feedback, but also generously volunteer their time to help other users on forums/IRC etc, or even through their own blogs.  And I repeat, they don’t work for Microsoft, but do it out of the goodness of their . All also happen to be Windows Live experts and established industry bloggers.

It’s always great to speak with Messenger enthusiasts and we will definitely need to follow-up with more in-depth interviews in the future, but for today, I’ll just share with you a few questions/answers from our conversations.

Q. Why do you use Messenger?
mynetx says: I love Messenger because it enables me to stay in touch with my friends continuously, whether they are living in my neighborhood or on the other side of the world. Messenger allows me to chat, to help, to think, to share, to meet my most dear friends, regardless of their actual location, and without me having to leave the house.

sunshine says: it’s indispensible to keep in touch with all those online friends (uhuh, can't you tell I'm a geek...lol) and to talk to co-bloggers of course, imagine having to call everybody, and the time differences…!

Kip: I was not a messenger user until I got involved in betas. I was kind of dragged into it by the other LiveSide members, but now I find it indispensible, I use Messenger every day, it's the best way to ask a quick question

Q. Why do you beta test?
RebelSean says: There were lots of reasons why I became a beta tester. The main reason I'd say is because I wanted to see Messenger grow and become more functional. I believe I and every other beta tester over the years have shaped WLM into what it is today. Another reason would be is the fact that I enjoy testing software and finding bugs and incompatibilities. I do remember one (bug), it was some sort of random key combination that instantly crashed Messenger and BSOD'ed my XP machine. Was confirmed by almost everyone on Connect (Connect is the Beta forum)

Q. Why do you help people with their Messenger issues?
mynetx says: I think sharing my knowledge about Windows Live Messenger is the least I can do. I find it odd if somebody has knowledge about a certain product, yet does not share it—you cannot make best use of Messenger unless you connect to its users and find out what is in their mind.  People often have problems with Messenger, but that is not always caused by the program itself. Thus I help to detect the real cause for errors and thus encourage people to get to know more Messenger features.

A few fun facts:
- Jonathan once had a 24 hour Messenger audio call (he left the computer a few times during that time period but the call was connected the entire time).  Somehow the call was disconnected and he ended up being unable to reconnect to the internet until the other computer was turned off since it was flooding his connection with requests. (this bug has since been fixed.) :)
- Sunshine turns her computer off at night incase it short circuits and catches fire while she is sleeping! :)
- Jonathan uses the emoticon on average 1.4 times per message.

So in the end, what was their favorite emoticon?  Here are the results. How about you? What’s your favorite emoticon?  Leave a comment with the characters… like :) or (@)
RebelSean-    mynetx -   Jonathan -   Kip -   Sunshine -

I asked everyone what they would write on a birthday card for Messenger, and here’s what they said.

Today’s Messenger story comes from RebelSean himself.  I’ve cut and paste the story from our chat below.  Enjoy.

Using Windows Live Messenger as a security system :),
RebelSean, USA.

RebelSean says:
Lets see, a story regarding Messenger. Last year when we were on vacation in Chicago, someone called my mom's cell phone from our house phone. Knowing that my entire family was in Chicago at the time, someone was obviously in our house that shouldn't be. So I thought and thought, is there anyway I can somehow hack into my computer and open my webcam to see if we can see anything. Then I remembered that we had left the computer on and I had left Messenger signed in. So using MPOP and a virtual desktop connection I got my webcam up and running.

Apparently my neighbor had heard my dog was making very loud noises like it was hurt, and broke into the house to make sure he was ok. He had gotten stuck under our couch in the den and couldn't get out, so she saved his life.

Lonn says:
oh wow, that's an awesome story, so did you actually see anything on the webcam?

RebelSean says:
We saw our neighbor leaving the house as for our desk in the living room is a corner desk across the room from our front door.
So we knew something had to be wrong for them to come into the house, and we called her and she explained the situation.

So that’s how you use Messenger as a security system… ;)

Fun Fact of the day:
Messenger connects people worldwide with their friends and family – did you know that with a IM category reach of 60%* Windows Live Messenger is the most widely used free instant messaging service in the world. All over the world 6 out of 10 instant messaging users choose Windows Live Messenger to chat with their friends.

Less than 1 week until the 10th Anniversary!  Thanks for reading…

- Windows Live Messenger Team

*Source: Comscore May 2009

12 more days until the big day - Messenger’s 10th Anniversary! 

Messenger Fun Facts:
1) The typing indicator ()seems trivial today, but actually it was a tricky problem back in the early days – how could you show that someone was entering a message without showing every single character (and their typos). The Messenger team invented the typing indicator for that purpose, which today is used by every chat client.

2) The nudge was introduced with MSN Messenger 7.0 on April 7^th 2005. Since then it is even easier to get attention from your favorite chat partner - even if they might not always appreciate your nudges! ;-)

I didn’t even know that the Messenger team invented the “typing indicator” until today, but I don’t know what I’d do without it! :)  

Before I share today’s user submitted story, I wanted to quickly introduce you to the Messenger program management team.  This team, led by Steven, works with several other teams such as design, usability, development , testing, etc to help bring Windows Live Messenger to your computer. They have a challenging but rewarding job. Look for posts from them in the future!  Special thanks to Sameer for putting this post together.

Meet the Messenger Client PM team

Now for today’s user story, in his own words…

Lenin (Ecuador): “Loving the Sound of new messages coming in”

Hi, this is Lenin, writing from Cuenca, Ecuador.

Technology has been one of my passions for my whole life and since Internet appeared I haven’t gone away from my computer. I spent hours in the IRC channels until someone had the genial idea of creating MSN Messenger (in those faraway times).

It was the best thing that could have happened to chats, in all chats and IRCs, people were typing: “Use the Messenger", and everyone was speaking of its big usefulness. After spending a week chatting with someone, it was: "Give me your 'Hotmail' so I can add you to mess".

And since that era, 1999, in all the cybercafés it was heard the nice wav sound: "new message" at every moment. Everyone was using it, times changed, years passed, there were new versions released with new features and in every computer it was essential to have Messenger.

And now, 10 years after, being called Windows Live Messenger and having the chance to change the sound for new messages or nudges, but I don’t do it because I’m used to that "toorooroon", it is part of my life. All my contacts are there, I’ve changed my Passport something like 5 times, but my buddies remain, all my life is there.
Greets...! ;)

---
Thanks for that submission Lenin!  (BTW, anyone know when the sound for incoming messages was first introduced? What’s your guess?)
-Windows Live Messenger Team

The 10th Anniversary of Windows Live Messenger is less than 2 weeks away.  As part of the celebration, we’re posting fun/touching stories from users and today’s Messenger story is from Cindy, who works in the Microsoft China office.  It’s a great story, let us know if you’ve tried this yourself and what your results were. :)

A quick Messenger fun fact:  Windows Live Messenger is available in 76 countries and 48 languages –Messenger users can say “I love you” not only in English, Spanish, German and Japanese (the initial 4 languages) but also Chinese, Estonian, Thai, Catalan, Hindi and many more. (How many languages can you say ‘I love you’ in?  Try it out… I could only get to 5… :))

Tips on how to propose via Windows Live Messenger
(Sent in by Mr. Zhang in China) 

A few days ago a coworker of mine successfully proposed to his girlfriend via his Windows Live status message. It caused such a commotion around here that everyone and their dog knew. For those of you who are still digging around in your brains for a creative proposing strategy, let me share with you his little success story.  Let’s start off from the beginning. One regular afternoon at work, he suddenly changed his Windows Live Messenger status message to: “Today I am proposing. Everyone, please help me send a text at 19:00 that says: XiaXue, please marry Liu YunShan!” At first we thought he was just playing around, but he told us he was being serious!

So for the whole day, he kept signing in and out, in and out. It was impossible for anyone who was on Messenger with a pair of eyes to not see his message. It immediately became the hottest topic on Messenger as everyone became interested in helping him out.

Right after work, we all found a good place near the main entrance to hide and watch “the show.” I even borrowed our company’s video camera to record that special moment. As planned, the lucky lady appeared at around 6pm. Completely clueless, she walked into our building as we bombarded her with our paparazzi-like photography skills. Before she knew it, he appeared right there in front of her, down on one knee. In his hand was a bouquet of 99 fresh red roses. At that moment, everyone in the entire building melted.

Just when she thought things were over, her cell phone began to ring. One ring after another, the Messenger proposal volunteers’ messages all came flooding into her cell phone. OMG, it must have lasted for at least 5 minutes. She burst into tears as she read the proposal messages:

“Speaking on behalf of the entire company, I strongly ask that you marry XiaoShan! He has been nominated as the best employee for years! With him, at least your stomach will always be filled!”

“XiaoXue, please take good care of XiaoShan”

“XiaoXue, marry XiaoShan! He is mature, stable, career-driven, has a house, almost has a car… Wait, this is what I’m looking for in a husband! PS: he has sexy legs :) Marry him!”

“Sister in-law, please pay mercy to XiaoShan, he has been singing Single Love Song every day, we’re all about to explode. If he sings that again, beat him up! Hehe, wish you guys the best!”

“Beautiful XiaoXue, marry XiaoShan!”

“XiaoXue, marry the beasty XiaoShan!”

…

So touching *sniff*.

The proposal strategy was successful: the couple went and registered the next day.

One of my friends heard about this success story and decided to follow suit. He, however, did not ask for help. He just went ahead and proposed to his girlfriend in his status message:

“My dearest Lan, here are 999 roses, please be my beautiful bride, will you marry me?”

After crying her eyes out, Lan agreed. Sure, it was pretty cheesy, but a few days later they registered too. We must admit that this strategy works, and it works pretty darn well.

From these two experiences, I have derived a few key points that I would like to share with all the clueless men out there.

1. When proposing, if you are asking for help (XiaoShan’s case), make sure your words are succinct. This will attract more eyeballs and thus increase your success rate. If you are proposing in your status message (Lan’s case), then you gotta be cheesy. Some cheese and corn will do it best. Below is my friend’s plan. Unfortunately, he has nobody to say it to. Notice how he used a lot of roses?

2. You must sign in and sign out at least once per minute! Make sure everyone in your list sees your message!
3. Choose your sign in time wisely. Best time is during working hours when everyone is on Messenger. ;)

Thanks, and good luck! :p

Windows Live Messenger provides a great deal of freedom in how you can communicate and with whom, but I’m sure we all know people that like to push the boundaries of Messenger-etiquette…

Here’s a quick look the top 5 Messenger etiquette offenders:

1. The YELLERS	CAPS-LOCK IS APPARENTLY ALWAYS ON FOR THESE USERS AND THEY HAVE A STRONG AFFINITY FOR THE EXCLAIMATION MARK!!!  REGARDLESS OF THE TOPIC, YOU CAN COUNT ON A LOUD RESPONSE!!!
2. Emoticon overload
3. Indecisive typers	That’s what it looks like when I ask my co-worker Alfons a question on Messenger.  He’s either slow, indecisive or both.  Either way, I’m sure we all know someone like this.  The best part is that after 5 minutes all you get is a one word answer. :p
4. Status Ignorers	Your status is set to busy and your message says  “DND – Do Not Disturb.  Delivering a mission critical demo or presentation.”  Not only will a Status Ignorer disregard your message and IM you anyways, but they also tend to start their conversations off with a less than ideal sentence such as: “HeY DuDe, R we going Partying all wknd again?” …which of course, everyone in your demo/presentation will see.
5. Never ending chat	These are typically people that you genuinely care about, an old friend, your mom/dad, a long lost relative etc… You have a great 30 minute chat, which then drags into a 3 hour chat.  Every time you say '”bye”, they start a new topic or ask you a question. This is somewhat parallel to the co-worker who keeps talking to you, even as you leave their office.  Then you have to come back and as ‘what was that?’… they tell you, then you try to leave again, and they again keep talking to you…

TELL US ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCES WITH THESE TYPE OF PEOPLE AND HOW YOU WOULD DEAL WITH THEM.  I’ll write up another post down the road that integrates all of your wisdom along with some of my own thoughts. :)  Just post a comment.

On that topic, as we continue to lead up to the 10th Anniversary of Windows Live Messenger, here are 2 GREAT stories submitted by our user’s about what NOT to do… I was LOL the first time I read them.  Enjoy and thanks Jonathan and Tariq.

Jonathan (UK): The Invention of Group Chat (and Group Feedback)

“A couple of years ago, a new middle manager started working in my department. For the first couple of weeks he didn't make the greatest impression. He looked like he was falling asleep in meetings and generally looked fairly uninterested.

I found out that he'd come from a company that a good friend of mine works for, so I opened up a chat with my friend on Messenger to see if he knew this guy and what he thought of him. I said about the falling asleep in meetings and other negative things that had been discussed around the cooler about him.

My friend said that he didn't know the guy personally, but that some of the 80+ people that he was sharing his screen with in an internal conference obviously did because they were falling about laughing!”

Jonathan, UK

Tariq (USA/Brazil): Not the best Way to introduce a Girl Friend to Mom

“Junior year of high-school my Brazilian girlfriend, Marina, moved back  to Brazil with her family. We used messenger video chat to keep in touch every week (as we do to this day – she is my best friend still).

One day, after a lot of deliberation, she decided to get a tattoo and pinged me excited to show it off. So we opened up a video chat session. The tattoo, a red tropical flower that wrapped around her left side, was hard to see with the shirt she had on so she took it off to provide a better view.

Naturally, my mother walked in at that moment to see an extremely embarrassed, shirtless Marina on my monitor. I reacted the only way I knew how, “Mom, have you met Marina?”. We laugh about the encounter to this day.”

Tariq, USA/Brazil

Thanks again to everyone that submitted a story.  We’ll continue to post them leading up the big 10th anniversary day (July 22nd) so continue to check back.

Today’s Fun 10th Anniversary Fact:  The average chat session is 5 mins long. In the US, chat sessions tend to be shorter with an average 4 mins, while people in China take on average 8 mins for each of their sessions.

Interesting… so where is my father counted in this??? (My dad is a ‘Never ending chatter"’)… :)

Thanks for reading.
The Windows Live Messenger Team