Windows Live Makeover Looks Like a Lackluster Version of FriendFeed
Microsoft is getting ready to make a significant overhaul to its Windows Live set of services. The changes, currently available in beta form to select users, will see tighter integration for Spaces, Hotmail, and Messenger, as well as a revamped Live.com homepage that looks suspiciously like FriendFeed.
Ars Technica has a nice preview of what you can expect in the new Windows Live, especially the homepage, which has been turned into a river of friend and contact updates that functions just like FriendFeed.
As with FriendFeed, you and your contacts can add other online services and track each other’s activities. Unfortunately Microsoft’s list of supported sites isn’t impressive — Flickr and Pandora are welcome options, but The Zune Social? That site still exists?
Of course you can always add generic RSS feeds for sites that aren’t official supported, and Microsoft’s Chris Jones, Corporate Vice President of Windows Live Experience Program Management, tells Ars that more partnerships will be announced soon.
And to be fair, Live.com isn’t the only site copping FriendFeed’s update approach, Facebook’s recent redesign looks similar as well.
Jones also stresses that Microsoft isn’t out to create a social network. Jones plays off the new Live social features as an experiment in which Microsoft is testing the waters. That’s probably a good stance, because we seriously doubt the masses are going to abandon Facebook and start feeding their Zune Social updates to friends via Live.com.
One place Live.com does reportedly have an edge over Facebook is with its Groups features which allows you much better control over which people see which updates. Of course we’ve never actually met anyone who uses Live.com, so the privacy feature are sort of baked in — privacy through obscurity.
So far Microsoft hasn’t announced a definite date for when new features will officially arrive, but rumors suggest early 2009 is a good bet.
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