1) Windows Live Spaces - The Spaces team has made some fabulous changes to, well, Spaces. Here is a summary

• Messages - Ability to send and receive personal messages just on spaces
• Guestbook - There is a guestbook module available now. For people to leave feedback.
• Home - A new spaces homepage. Which acts like a dashboard for your space.
• Customization - Zillions of ways to personalize/customize the space. Font, Colors, Size, Backgrounds etc
• Photogallery, Mobile, Modules. more

2)  Windows Live Gallery - The live gallery team has made some useful changes.

• Windows Live Messenger personal expression content, available in Live Gallery
• UI Updates
• Partners can publish their premium content

3) Virtual Earth - Windows Live Maps added a lot of new/improved cities.

• Italy - 73 cities now have more detail, down to 15 cm resolution in some areas
• Indiana
• Hawaii
• Malibu
• Joiliet
• Miramar
• San Francisco
• Aurora
• More...

Over the past few days, I have been noticing gradual changes on different MSN sites. I guess now it has reached the tipping point for me to blog about it. The first and most noticeable change has been in the navigation menu on the top.

Whether you visit MSN entertainment or MSN money, the header will have a consistent look and feel. However entertainment.MSN.com will have "movies", "music" and "tv" on the top left showing up for easy navigation; Whereas, money.msn.com will show up with "autos", "sports", "tech" instead. The "more" tab, which is available on all properties,brings a pop up showing all the msn sites. I like this interface, and most importantly, I like the consistency. Besides these there has been consistent change to the menus and look and feel throughout the msn sites.

The latest and the greatest of them all has been the next release of msn video and an overhaul of msn soapbox. The msn video site looks totally cool. It no more uses the Windows media player skin but a much better looking and functional player. Here is the summary of changes from the soapbox blog:

Upgraded Features:

• Scalable Page. Thumbnails and other page items scale upon re-sizing the browser
• New Player.
  • Integrated Playlists and Progessive download Indicators.
  • Auto-Playlists and ability to share playlists.
  • Improved Fullscreen Experience.
  • Updated Embedded player
•  Ability to sort video gallery

Soapbox Features

• Single Page browsing and viewing.
• Upload
  • Unlimited Video Lengths.
  • Simultaneously Upload and process Multiple Videos.
  • Persistent Upload and Process indicator
• Embed Player with Multiple Videos.
• Soapbox Gadgets and Vista Sidebar Gadgets
• High Quality Video Encoding.
• Watch videos simultaneously with Friends using Messenger Activity Window.

However there are a couple of changes I  don't like about the next.video.msn.com is

• The new popup menus on the tabs. I liked the old soapbox style better

• The tags are not Web 2.0 style. Again the older soapbox style was better

Other than that, this is great work. One important thing to note according to the soapbox blog is that the current MSN video site is not going anywhere!

via liveside

As usual, I came to work started IE. After skimming through the news on my Live.com page, I went to msn.com. And man was I surprised. The page opened up as if I was opening in a word document. It was an interactive Office 2007 ad. Classy stuff. Very innovative.

Totally cool stuff from Microsoft. The ad is not just innovative and engaging, it also conveys the point pretty well. Check this amateur screencast or check it our for yourself @ www.msn.com/defaulto.aspx

  
Video: Office 2007 Advertisement on MSN.com

 My heart goes out to the family and friends of all those who had to face this tragedy. God bless.

Victims in Virginia Tech massacre - Massacre at Virginia Tech - MSNBC.com

Tagspace is a Bookmarking site for Technology Professionals. Its a Microsoft Community Beta. This is what the site says about it.

Tagspace is a Web-based “social bookmarking” service that will revolutionize the way you collect, organize, discover, consume, and share links to the sites that you find interesting or valuable on the World Wide Web.

Korby Parnell explains what TagSpace is all about. Below is a Screenscast on soapbox.

 
Video: Intro to Tagspace

via bink

LiveSide reports that according to latest search engine rankings released by Comscore, Microsoft gained market share in search.


via comscore

In another news, PeterLau has created a cool screencast and is up on Channel 9 about the Collections feature in Live Maps. Google recently released Mymaps feature - something that has been available in Live Maps for over an year now

via LiveSide
via JrzyShr

Google closed the deal to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 billion!! Microsoft should not have let this opportunity slip!  Alas!

Xbox 360 owners will soon be able to connect to the 260 million WL Messenger users. Come May 7, 2007 owners of Xbox 360 consoles will be able to connect with friends on other Xbox 360 consoles, PCs and Windows Mobile phones.

In fact this will bring instant messaging experience to your living room.  

Here are the words from

Beginning the week of May 7, 2007, the Xbox 360 Spring Update will provide Xbox 360 owners worldwide with access to Windows Live Messenger features, broadening the communication options on the Xbox LIVE social network. Members of the 6 million-strong Xbox LIVE community currently send more than 2 million text and voice messages a day and can now use Windows Live Messenger to text chat with up to six people on their contact list at one time, while playing games, listening to music or watching movies. Text chat adds to the variety of options friends and families already have to communicate with on Xbox LIVE, including voice and video chat.

In other news, LiveSide reports that a new text input device embedded in the Xbox controller has surfaced.

via LiveSide
via Bink

I have been meaning to blog about this for a while now. The pain in my leg finally enabled me to do it on this fine sunny Friday evening.

i-mate Momento is a picture frame that is WiFi enabled. It can stream photos that you or friends upload on Momento Live as well as via Windows Media Player 11. Of course there are the memory cards it supports. I can really see this becoming the next iPod.

But the thing that gets me really excited about this product is the support for Windows Sideshow.

What can it do:
Imagine you have your laptop (Window Vista) completely turned off.  The Sideshow technology lets you see things that sit on your PC (even while turned off). The  i-mate Momento frame uses this technology and overlays useful information such as calendar, news flashes, alerts, stocks, weather forecasts while showing pictures.

How does it work:
All you need to do is negotiate the i-mate Momento frame with Windows Vista to enable it as a Sideshow device. Now download the Sideshow gadgets from Windows Live gallery. Choose which gadgets you want showing up on your Momento frame and there you go!.

via shahine