Sweeping Changes At Live.com: It’s A Social Network!

Microsoft's Live.com portal will change significantly this evening. No longer will it be a simple search engine with a few other services bolted on. It's now a social network, too, pulling in activity information and content from around the web. They're also launching Windows Live Photos and Windows Live People, and other services. Check it out at Home.Live.com.

A lot of what they've done is exactly what Yahoo has been talking about for over a year now - leveraging social connections that already exist (Yahoo is using email, Microsoft is using Messenger) and doing a lot more with it.

Users are automatically connected with any friends they have on Windows Live Messenger, which is by far the most popular instant messaging service worldwide (Comscore: Microsoft Messenger has 268 million worldwide users, compared to 116 million for Yahoo and 6 million for Google Talk).

Users are asked to build out their profile, and can also bring in content they create on blogs (or any RSS feeds, Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, iLike, Twitter, Wordpress and Yelp. When you do something new on those sites, the information flows into Live.com for your friends to see (in a very similar way as FriendFeed, Plaxo and others do today). Eventually, says Microsoft, more than 50 partners will be supported. When users add photos, write reviews, and update their profiles directly on Live.com, that content will be put into the activity stream as well.

The hope, of course, is to get people to hang out a lot more at Live.com. At least those people who use Messenger, since they already have their contacts established. Like Yahoo, Microsoft is going with its strengths, which in their case is instant messaging.

Microsoft's software plus services strategy has clearly infiltrated Live.com as well as their approach with Office. Live.com users can now access a variety of online services like mail, calendar, photos, online storage, etc., as well as downloaded services that include a mail client, instant messaging, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, the Toolbar and other services. And now it's also one big social network.

The result is an impressive personal productivity suite that makes me almost wish I wasn't solely a Mac user.

Overview video and reviewers guide are below:

Windows Live Reviewers Guide - Get more Information Technology

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Flipswap your old phone for cash

It looks like Radio Shack isn't the only green game in town when it comes to swapping out your unused gadgets for some cash. California-based Flipswap has just received a whopping $14 million in venture funding to help expand its cell phone and iPod recycling program. Pretty impressive for a "green" company in this uncertain economy. With all of you buying or planning to buy new handsets this winter season, we figure there are a lot of older, now unused handsets floating around. Yeah, some of you will go the eBay or Craigslist route but if you're looking for an alternative way to offload your phone, you may want to check out Flipswap which will give you cash in return for your old cell phone or iPod. Flipswap is located in 6,000 retail locations and have even partnered with a few online vendors like Newegg and Amazon so you can get cash in the form of a gift card for your old phone. If your phone is too decrepit for cash, Flipswap will still take it for recycling purposes and will plant a tree in your name instead. One new tree is much better than one new handset in a landfill and this year alone Flipswap has planted an estimated 28,000 trees! BlackBerry owners in particular should take note as Flipswap recently partnered with RIM and will give you an extra $50 if you swap an old BlackBerry for a new BlackBerry. The company is also in the process of expanding its retail program so you can get cash for your old phone and apply it immediately to your new handset purchase. w00t! Flipswap is definitely worth looking into before you toss that old handset into your garbage can. Think green and recycle, y'all! Hit the read link for more info or if you're a Berry addict, go straight to Flipswap's dedicated BlackBerry page.

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Preview Internet Explorer Mobile 6 with Microsoft’s free emulator

As is the case with Vista, Windows Mobile has become a bit of a whipping boy for the tech blogosphere. The difference between the two? Most people outside of an Apple commercial know that Vista has come leaps and bounds since its problematic birth. Sure there are still issues but as a whole, the OS has become more than usable for many. Windows Mobile on the other hand, still has a lot of growing up to do. Many of the issues that users have been complaining about for what seems like an eternity still remain unresolved. Internet Explorer Mobile, of course, is one of those issues. Fans who have managed to stick by Windows Mobile and are in it for the long haul will be excited to learn that Microsoft isn't going to sit idly by and let third-party mobile browser developers attack the issue alone. There is now a free preview of the next-generation Internet Explorer Mobile browser available for all to play with by way of an emulator download. Initial reports are fairly positive and it looks like development is certainly moving in the right direction. A quick overview of some of the new features in IEM 6:
Improved fidelity (support for full fidelity desktop rendering)
Layout fixes to accommodate a mobile screen (text wrap)
Enhanced Script and AJAX support  (Jscript v5.7 from Internet Explorer
Improved multimedia experience (Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for Adobe Flash content)
Deeper integration with search
Enhanced cursor navigation model
Touch and gesture support – pan support
Multiple zoom levels
Easy switching between mobile / desktop versions of sites by specifying UA strings

As you can see, there are definitely some key areas that we can now confirm are being addressed in the upcoming version. There are also a few nice additions such as desktop mode. Kudos to Microsoft for giving users a preview and we can only hope that the release version will not only catch Microsoft's mobile browser up to the competition, but even break some new ground.

[Via Giz]

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Gmail’s New Gadget Support Lets You Remember The Milk

Last week Google announced a new set of gadgets for Gmail Labs that offer integration with Docs and Google Calendar. But perhaps most exciting (and under-emphasized at the time) was the introduction of support for third party gadgets, giving users the chance to add features to Gmail beyond what Google offers.

One of the first developers to take advantage of the new feature is Remember The Milk (RTM), a popular To-Do list application that we reviewed back in 2005. The service allows users to access and input to-do items from a variety of locations, and offers its core service for free (you can pay $25 a year for support on extra mobile devices). While RTM offered support for Gmail before now, it was reliant on a Firefox extension, raising the barrier to entry and cutting out a large portion of the browser market.

The new Gmail gadget works across on all popular browsers and isn't dependent on any plugins. Unfortunately adding the gadget isn't exactly intuitive - you'll first have to enable the "Add any gadget by URL" feature in Gmail Labs, and then manually enter the RTM gadget location (http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/modules/gmail/rtm.xml). You can find the full instructions at the RTM blog here.

The Gmail blog post notes that this process isn't very user-friendly yet, explaining that it is mostly for developer experimentation rather than widespread use. But it's an exciting taste of things to come, and it looks like Google is going to be expanding developer access even further, allowing them to integrate their gadgets beyond the left nav-bar. Look for more Gmail addons to make the jump from plugin to native gadget in the near future.

Thanks to Orli Yakuel for the tip.

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