Preview of Windows Live Messenger

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowslive/archive/2010/04/28/preview-of-the-new-windows-live-messenger.aspx' target='_blank'>http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/wi...-messenger.aspx</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"We've spent the last few months posting about how we look at the industry, the key customer problems that are top-of-mind for us, and where we think we can improve the lives of our customers. Today in a speech at the Universidade de S&atilde;o Paulo in Brazil, Steve Ballmer is sharing a preview of the new Windows Live Messenger. In this post we want to talk more about our philosophy and approach for this new version. In subsequent posts we'll go into more depth on different aspects of the experience."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1273634057.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Talk about a major re-design! I wonder though, is it too little too late? I don't log into Messenger as much as I used to - I find that I fire up TweetDeck 10x more often than Messenger. Twitter isn't a complete replacement for IM though - being a public medium, I always keep that in mind when I post messages. If I could fire up one software client and get Twitter, Messenger, and Facebook messages...that would be very useful to me. What about you?</p>

[marlof]

My Twitter feed is private, and I only follow people I know. Most of them follow me too, so it's a good way of communicating with those friends. I only log on Messenger on one of my computers, but my active friends list is getting smaller and smaller. Most who used to be online a lot, now mostly are offline, so I think we're not alone.

Having Messenger and Twitter in one app would be nice, if mobile Messenger apps would allow messaging people who are currently offline. Looking at battery life, I don't like to use an active connection just for Messenger.

[djdj]

Skype has nearly entirely replaced Messenger for me. But even that is being replaced for most people by Facebook's chat feature. The days of the standalone IM client are probably waning.

[asims]

Have you ever checked out Trillian? It can connect to virtually all IMs including Facebook and Twitter.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

God damn that's not what I'm looking for in IMing.

Most people I know still are not on Facebook, so, IM's will still last quite a bit longer.

I still use the official client because of MPOP. If something like say, Digsby offered MPOP, I'd switch, but till then, it's still the official client for me.

[Jason Dunn]

Have you ever checked out Trillian? It can connect to virtually all IMs including Facebook and Twitter.

I've tried out a few multi-client type solutions in the past - most recently Digsby - but I've found them all to be kind of fugly and dysfunctional...things don't quite work the way they should sometimes. :confused: