Windows Live Wave 4: Beta testing underway expect to see it in the summer
New Windows Live Messenger Wave 4 screenshots revealed:
PCs running Windows continue to be the most popular way to connect to the internet. And, just as email and instant messaging have changed, the way people use their PCs has changed too. These days, folks use their PCs to communicate on social networks, send email, browse the web, and share photos and videos with their friends. Most people have a mobile phone, and many have an additional PC. And most people already have at least one social network (often more), a photo sharing service, and an email address.
Much like instant messaging, email has changed over the last several years. In the “old days” of email, you would only get mail from a real person, someone who knew your email address, and email was mostly text. Email today is a lot more than plain text – it is the way we get things done. It’s where we conduct business, keep up with social networking updates, and share photos, documents and links with friends and co-workers. Similarly, your “contact list” isn’t just people you send email to anymore – it is a long list of people you communicate with in the social networks you use every day.
In the not-so-distant past, your friends were mostly on one IM network, mostly on a PC, and it was easy to keep track of what they were doing. Today’s instant messaging is still mostly about people who are online on a PC having a conversation with each other. In Messenger, these conversations occur between more than 320 million users who exchange more than 10 billion daily messages
Over recent years, conversations shifted beyond IM sessions, to activity on social networks, sharing in email, and SMS messages. People have hundreds of “friends” across numerous social networks and sharing sites, but most people still spend most of their time communicating with a core group of people. To stay up to date with these “real friends” you have to go from site to site and wade through long lists of post – most people don’t need another social network – the one they have is just fine.
Wave 4 of Windows Live Essentials includes the best tools to organize photos, make movies, and keep in touch with your closest friends, all designed for the power of the Windows 7 PC. We’ll focus on connecting your PC to your social networks, your photo sharing services, your phone, and your other PCs – and help you keep things in sync across all the devices you use.
Windows Live services and programs consist of:
•a group of free desktop programs – Live Mail, Live Messenger, Live Movie Maker, Live Photo Gallery, Live Writer and Live Family Safety – that you download and install,
•a group of free online web services such as Live Calendar, Live Hotmail, Live Photos and Live Spaces.
The group of programs you download and install are grouped together as Windows Live Essentials and the online services are grouped as Windows Live Internet Services.
Expect to see Wave 4 on Windows 7 only.
