Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows
Home > Type > News > Windows Live Wave 3 coming today

Windows Live Wave 3 coming today

Dec. 2, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

So I'm not seeing it here, but Microsoft has announced Windows Live Wave 3:

Top Features in the New Windows Live Web Services

December 2, 2008

Today Microsoft Corp. delivered on its promise to help simplify the Web, rolling out a new generation of innovative Web services that help consumers stay in touch, share their experiences and keep their lives in sync. Now, with the latest generation of Windows Live, there is one place to chat via instant messaging (IM), send and receive e-mail, share photos and files, and keep in touch.

Starting today, consumers worldwide will be able to use the new Windows Live Web services to simplify their online experiences. More services and applications will be rolled out in the coming months. Additional information about today’s release is available at http://www.windowslive.com.

Below are just a few of the ways consumers can take advantage of the new design and streamlined look and feel of the latest version of Windows Live:

Windows Live Home. Wish there was one place where you could easily manage all parts of your digital life? Windows Live Home gives you a view into your friends’ networks and makes it easy to stay connected, across the range of services you use on the internet today. It’s the place to go to track updates to your contacts’ recent online activities across Windows Live and the Web.

Windows Live Profile. Quickly and easily broadcast key information about yourself from Windows Live and ultimately more than 50 partner sites to your Windows Live network. Anything that you do on Windows Live or on select third-party services is automatically reflected on your profile as well as throughout most other services in Windows Live — if you choose to share with your network. Invite your existing friends and contacts from your favorite third-party services, such as LinkedIn, to Windows Live so that they can stay in sync with your latest updates.

Windows Live Groups. Get your child’s soccer group organized with this new service that allows teams, clubs, extended families and others to easily collaborate online. Announce an upcoming game, upload and share the latest photos, or instantly chat with the whole gang.

Windows Live Photos. Simplify how you store and share all your memories on the Web. Quickly add photos, tag and comment on photos, see friends’ photo albums, and create expressive Silverlight slide shows. You can also upload photos directly to Windows Live Photos from most Web-enabled cell phones.

Windows Live SkyDrive. Have easy access to important files online when you’re on the go. Now with 25 GB of storage, up from 5 GB, Windows Live SkyDrive has plenty of room to store files, photos and other digital content that you can share with friends or keep to yourself.

Windows Live People. Tired of a having contacts here, there and everywhere? This central address book contains your Windows Live Hotmail contacts as well as everyone in your Windows Live network. You can also invite people from social networking services that you belong to, including Facebook and LinkedIn.

Add your activity from around the Web. Collaborations with leading web companies are now live. Update your Windows Live network on your latest activity around the Web by adding any of the following sites to your profile starting today. More sites will be added in the coming months.

  • Blogs: Twitter, WordPress
  • Reviews: Flixster, StumbleUpon, Yelp
  • Photos: Flickr, Photobucket
  • Social Network: Daum, TripIt
  • Music/Video: iLike, Pandora

Discuss this Article 39

johnbaxter
on Dec 2, 2008
Saying "Today" and linking to a page that says "In a few weeks..." is interesting on Microsoft's part. It looks too soon to wait with 'bated breath--too many purple faces around if we do.
machias
on Dec 2, 2008
Yes, I've been waiting for my home.live.com page to dazzle me today but nothing has changed as of yet. Then again, it took me a long time to get the hotmail update.
Waethorn
on Dec 2, 2008
When is this happening today? It's the same WindowsLive.com page that's been up for like the last month - a pic of a girl sitting on her back with a big "coming soon" link. (I can't make this stuff up) ;)
rjohn05
on Dec 2, 2008
I hope profile, groups and skydrive get released today.
rjohn05
on Dec 2, 2008
I hope profile, groups and skydrive get released today.
bkvalheim
on Dec 2, 2008
While Windows Live has potential, the majority of users are most likely Microsoft zealots. The general public is still in the dark about Live and it's branding. The new Hotmail, while an improvement in speed (substantially), is still aging compared to the Gmail beta. The biggest interest is here is the reading pane from Outlook. While moving the banner ad from the top to the side in the most updated release is a welcome change, making the ads less intrusive (like gmails), is a direction they should have went. Freeing up pop access, which was once free to begin with, isn't a "feature" either. The big winners here are Skydrive (google is trailing there) and Live People. But what is the point if nobody knows about them? I remember the days when every other email I received had the @hotmail.com at the end. Now all I see is @gmail or isp specific. I hope Windows Live improves, and I want it to improve and saturate the market...I really want to use it. Here is to hoping!
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 2, 2008
When new Live services roll out it takes quite a while for the system to migrate through all the data centers and servers. Realistically, I'd expect to see the migration drift across the world during the day.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 2, 2008
FYI: LiveSide http://www.liveside.net is expecting the rollout to start at 4PM Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8)
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 2, 2008
"While Windows Live has potential, the majority of users are most likely Microsoft zealots." Hotmail has well over a quarter of a BILLION users. That's a lot of zealots.
techfan
on Dec 2, 2008
I use the "Software" side of Windows Live more than I use the "Service" side but I want to see how Live Photos and Live Home stack up to other similar sites. I also use SkyDrive.
bkvalheim
on Dec 2, 2008
"Hotmail has well over a quarter of a BILLION users." Spammers you mean. And why is it that in the old days, we received email from people with "@hotmail" and now it's a rare occasion? Hotmail was one of the best, most advertised free email options available.....10 years ago or more. Times have changed, and the younger generation seems to be moving on to things like gmail, myspace, facebook. It's rare that I am linked to a Live Spaces, or MSN/Live Photo site.
screechi0784
on Dec 2, 2008
When are they going to release the software part of the windows live wave 3?
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 2, 2008
bkvalheim The numbers really don't match your experience. Hotmail is BY FAR more popular than GMail. Although Yahoo! mail is still bigger than either of them last I'd checked. And yet, I don't get much mail with an @yahoo.com address. Personal experience really doesn't reflect actual usage share in my experience. People tend to have friends that use similar services and move in clusters.
bkvalheim
on Dec 2, 2008
Well believe me, I never once claimed gmail was bigger that Hotmail. IMO, I am sure that hotmail completely dwarfs gmail by leaps and bounds by number of accounts. The question is, which accounts are being used daily, and which accounts are still lingering (checking their old email occasionally), while they moved on to others. How many are throw away accounts? How many are one time accounts to sign up for a free offer? But of that 250 million number, my guess is that the number of truly active accounts (based on percentage) could be dwarfed by gmail down the road in the not to far future. There is no question that hotmail rocks as far as number of accounts. That said, I have begged my wife to leave hotmail, and she refuses. She said she is just used to it, and doesn't want to learn a new email client. It just "works", and that is what she wants.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 2, 2008
bkvalheim Actually, Hotmail also dwarfs GMail in network traffic. It's certainly used. GMail gets a lot of press but not a lot of usage. Hotmail gets little press but a lot of usage.
bkvalheim
on Dec 2, 2008
True, I guess spam does take up quite a bit of traffic. :)
Waethorn
on Dec 2, 2008
Well considering that the 2 biggest ISP's in Canada are Bell and Rogers, both Hotmail and Yahoo!Mail get a good workout. Bell is partnered with MSN, so their email system backend is powered by the same system that runs Hotmail. Rogers is partnered with Yahoo!, and the same is true there. Both services give out branded email addresses as @sympatico.ca or @rogers.com even though you can log on to their respective partner sites, Hotmail, and Yahoo!Mail. Even though people aren't necessarily using the original hotmail.com or yahoo.ca domains, the systems are still being used on a daily basis by the vast majority of users. AFAIK, no ISP in Canada is partnered with Google for value-added services. How many US ISP's are partnered with any of those companies?
DarkSages
on Dec 2, 2008
"Spammers you mean. And why is it that in the old days, we received email from people with "@hotmail" and now it's a rare occasion?" Actually most spammers use bots and other programs to pretend they are someone else. For example I could use my email server and tweak it so that it looks like my email comes from ebay or microsoft or anyone. The only way to really know is to look at the headers of the email.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 2, 2008
DarkSages Actually, the way internet email works, you could also route your mail through another server and change your header to make even reading the header pretty useless. (The way mail works on the internet is really ugly - legacy of the old Unix based design from long, long ago)
johnbaxter
on Dec 2, 2008
It remains true that much of the spam "from" @hotmail.com addresses never touched the hotmail servers on its way to the victims. (It's not quite as true as before, as Microsoft periodically loses control of the signup process, although I haven't seen much of that recently, either (it's happening more on Yahoo, recently, particularly yahoo.co.hk). (I've been watching details of incoming Spam since 1994.) Much the same is true of @msn.com addresses (since they moved to the hotmail servers--they were pretty clean before that but as with hotmail got a bad rap due to forgeries). I don't have a hotmail account--(leftover bad feelings)--I do have a live.com account (also hotmail servers of course). (I was amused by one response from Hotmail abuse, who assured me that the @hotmail.com spam I reported with full headers, which clearly arrived from a hotmail server, was our problem not theirs.) Anyhow, looking forward to the rollout.
johnbaxter
on Dec 2, 2008
DarkSages and Mike, the Received: header one can trust is the first one written by the receiving server in one's own shop, where that is verified to match the log entry for the message's arrival. That's what I mean when I say a message came from a hotmail server. It helps to be able to access those logs, as I can. We see attempts to forge our Received: headers, but since they forge sendmail headers and we don't use sendmail, those are easy to spot even without checking logs.
RunTimeError
on Dec 2, 2008
"Hotmail was one of the best, most advertised free email options available.....10 years ago or more. Times have changed, and the younger generation seems to be moving on to things like gmail, myspace, facebook. It's rare that I am linked to a Live Spaces, or MSN/Live Photo site." Prior to 1997, Hotmail wasn't owned by Microsoft.
johnbaxter
on Dec 2, 2008
"Old Unix based design from long ago". True, but...that's in contrast to the Microsoft campus mail system of the mid and slightly-later 1990s, I suppose. I got a message from a program manager announcing that a new version of a beta thing was about to be shipped. Sent by him before the shipment (confirmed verbally). Message arrived 25 hours after the shipment did, with headers proclaiming its strange journey around the campus. (Our mail system was working throuhout, and receiving trickles of other mail from the campus.) (Exchange works. Now. Pretty well as viewed from outside an entity (I've never viewed it from inside). As of 2003 (or 2000 with 3rd party patches). Before that, it was a colatteral spammer.)
bkvalheim
on Dec 2, 2008
"Prior to 1997, Hotmail wasn't owned by Microsoft." I never said it was.
robertsjoe
on Dec 2, 2008
@mikegalos: "Hotmail has well over a quarter of a BILLION users. That's a lot of zealots." That's a lot of people that don't know any better. AOL has a lot of users too. And look at the reputation AOL users have. "The numbers really don't match your experience. Hotmail is BY FAR more popular than GMail." Popularity means nothing. Look at Windows. The most popular but clearly not the best operating system. People have been conned in to using it now and are paying a high Microsoft tax.
bkvalheim
on Dec 2, 2008
"Popularity means nothing." Exactly. Look at Britney Spears. She can't sing, yet she is popular. It's not our fault people have bad taste :)
Waethorn
on Dec 2, 2008
"People have been conned in to using it now and are paying a high Microsoft tax." Last time I checked, Hotmail was free. Has that changed? By contrast, people using Google pay a high Google tax: the exclusive right by Google to use any and all content posted by the user to use as ads to promote Google's services, and to sell to other advertisers and Google partners that pay for it (ie. malware site owners that advertise on Google). Microsoft doesn't "charge" that "tax".
shark47
on Dec 2, 2008
"True, I guess spam does take up quite a bit of traffic. :)" It maybe true that a lot of spammers use hotmail. It's also true (in my case) that my gmail account receives a lot more spam. For me, the choice between the two is simple... and easy - I prefer hotmail.
robertsjoe
on Dec 2, 2008
"People have been conned in to using it now and are paying a high Microsoft tax." True. But they are tight not offering free POP3. It's 2008 peoples.
DRWAM
on Dec 2, 2008
Google sux porcupine nuts. Live Mesh folders can be accessed through the hospital firewall with just the browser, and it's free! totally rad! Get it, rad?
shark47
on Dec 2, 2008
To see why Google rocks, do a search for "#mumbai" on live and Google. The twitter page is among the top 5 links on Google and nowhere to be found on live search. It seems like Google's results are updated a lot more frequently.
Delmont
on Dec 2, 2008
robertsjoe said: @mikegalos: "Hotmail has well over a quarter of a BILLION users. That's a lot of zealots." That's a lot of people that don't know any better. AOL has a lot of users too. And look at the reputation AOL users have. "The numbers really don't match your experience. Hotmail is BY FAR more popular than GMail." Popularity means nothing. Look at Windows. The most popular but clearly not the best operating system. People have been conned in to using it now and are paying a high Microsoft tax. ______________________________________ Hey Robert: give it a rest will you? Please take your Apple trolling crap somewhere else!!!!!!!!! Christ! Just give it a rest. We get it, you like Apple. OK! But enough!
escully
on Dec 2, 2008
Is POP3 hotmail access offered in today's rollout?
techfan
on Dec 2, 2008
@screechi0784: I think I read/heard something about the WL Software being released early in 2009. I just gave some of the Wave 3 WL Services a try. The Favorites in SkyDrive is bad. A barebones page but until WL Favorites, each link opens in a new tab. I thought photos in SkyDrive would also appear in WLPhotos but I don't see them. I do like the Slideshow feature in SkyDrive (though it's very simple).
robertsjoe
on Dec 2, 2008
@delmont: "Hey Robert: give it a rest will you? Please take your Apple trolling crap somewhere else!!!!!!!!!" When will this blog stop trolling with anti-Apple stuff? Why not ask that Paul stop being an Apple basher?
Delmont
on Dec 2, 2008
Robertsjoe, No. ( shaking my head in disgust at you ) Where to begin...hmm...it's a free country, it's Paul's blog...how about those two things for starters? How do you feel it is your duty in life to right what you believe is being said that is wrong about Apple? Get a life dude! Pack up and move out of your parent's basement. Try enrolling in college if you're old enough.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 2, 2008
home.live.com is very, very cool. Kind of like a full social networking site but with no lock-in.
gorath
on Dec 3, 2008
@ Delmont: "That's a lot of people that don't know any better. AOL has a lot of users too. And look at the reputation AOL users have." I thought the old AOL reputation was because of loads of internet newcomers being unaware of usenet etiquette. Seems like your AOL argument may be out of date.
Delmont
on Dec 3, 2008
gorath: I don't even know what you're talking about. I do not defend AOL. I dislike AOL. The only people I know that use AOL are GM UAW employees that get it for $3/month. Fourth I was quoting robertsjoe. Fifth, is this same lame attempt to come to the rescue of one of your Apple troll buddies?

Please or Register to post comments.

Related Articles

IT/Dev Connections

Las Vegas
September 30th - October 4th

Paul ThurottYou'll have the opportunity to experience:
• 120 Technical
Sessions
• Networking with Peers
• Expert Speakers


Come See Paul Thurrott & Mary Jo Foley in Person!

Register Now

Office 365 InfoCenter

Get the latest insight and info from Paul

Read Now!

What I Use
Apr. 18, 2013
Article

What I Use: On the Road 21

Every so often, I publish an updated version of my “What I Use” document, which details the technology products and services I actually use day-to-day. Since I’m currently on my third business trip in five weeks, this is perhaps an ideal time to discuss the technology products I rely on when I travel and a few related points....More
Mar. 6, 2013
Article

What I Use: March 2013 33

Lots of changes since November, including a new PC-based home server running Windows 8, several new smart phones, new PCs and tablets, new cloud backup, Office 365 Home Premium and a nice doubling of my Internet speeds courtesy of Verizon FIOS....More
WinSuperSite.com
Related Penton Sites
Copyright © 2013 Penton Media, Inc