Jamie's space: Live Messenger

More on storing Messenger conversations on the Mesh

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:06:28 GMT

3 weeks ago I wrote a blog entry Storing Messenger conversations on the Mesh where I said:

Currently I don't save my Live Messenger conversations ... Wouldn't it be cool if all of our Messenger conversations were automatically saved to the Mesh? That way every conversation I have would be recorded and I would be able to search through them all as well.

I made the same suggestion on the Live Mesh forum along with some reasons why this would be a good idea and whilst there was general support for the idea it was suggested that instead I configure Messenger to automatically store all of my conversations and then sync the "C:\Users\jamie\Documents\My Received Files\<ID>" folder using Mesh. This I did and its been working pretty well for me (I recommend trying it for yourself) and now, as you can see below, I have a history of all of my Messenger conversations synchronised across all of my machines:

After using this for a few weeks now though I have realised that there are some fallacies to this approach that could be alleviated by having Messenger automatically store conversations to Mesh; those being:

All conversations with the same person are stored in the same file thus if you have a conversation with the same person on different machines then there will likely be a file conflict. When you resolve that conflict then at least one of the conversations gets lost.
The Mesh client is a pre-requisite.
Conversations done on the web using a Messenger web interface don't get captured anywhere.
Files that are transferred don't get stored.
Anything done in the Activity window is lost.
Audio conversations are lost.
Video conversations are lost.

All of these could be alleviated if Messenger was "Meshified". Let me just clarify what I mean by that; it does not mean that all your Messenger conversations need to be conducted on www.mesh.com, it means that the Messenger service in the cloud (the one through which orchestrates all Messenger conversations) becomes responsible for storing your conversations on the Mesh.

I'm going to be actively campaigning for the Messenger team to implement this. Is anyone with me?

-Jamie

In the clubhouse: clubhouse, Messenger, How-to, Mesh

Inside “Inside Messenger”

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:52:59 GMT

I’m on a Live Messenger tip tonight.

I’ve been checking out the Inside Messenger bot (otherwise known as a Windows Live Agent) and having a lot of fun with it. As you can see below I’ve been checking out the new House of Cards video from Radiohead. Its hosted on Youtube but I’ve no need to go to Youtube to watch it because I can watch it right from within Live Messenger using Inside Messenger and, not only that, I can twitter about it at the same time. All from the same conversation window.

If you want to do the same then its dead simple, just go and add chat@insidemessenger.com to your Messenger buddy list and you’ll be away.

Cool stuff.

-Jamie

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, how-to, Messenger, Live Messenger, Agents, Live Agents

What is the UK’s most popular web application?

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:10:37 GMT

In terms of minutes spent online, what do you suppose is the UK’s most popular web-based website or service? Google? Facebook? iTunes? eBay? Maybe Second Life? MySpace perhaps? Well if you said one of those you’d be wrong on all counts, its actually Windows Live Messenger….and by some distance too.

Check out the latest standings as gathered from a report by Nielson Online.

I was quite shocked when I saw that, I never expected Live Messenger to top all that lot but I’m happy that it does. I’m a big believer that Messenger is an incredibly underused tool and I said so in my blog post I believe that Agents are our future... back in December 2007:

I look forward to the day when I am able to view my bank balance, pay my bills, purchase things from Amazon, book flights, view live flight information, update personal details that people may have about me and do countless other things that I haven't thought of yet all from within my Live Messenger window.

Thanks to Riann for the tip. You can catch Riann on Twitter by the way at http://twitter.com/riaanvs, he’s got quite a lot to say about Messenger.

-Jamie

Windows Live Tags: Clubhouse, Story, Live Messenger, Messenger

IE8 Activities in Live Messenger

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:43:50 GMT

Did you catch the MIX08 keynote today? I did and I gotta tell you, I was pretty impressed by a lot of things. Not least IE8 which up to now I'd been completely dismissive of, it didn't interest me in the slightest. Until they showed Activities and Web Slices that is. I thought Activities in particular were a great idea and figured I would love to see the same functionality in Live Messenger. Hence, I submitted the following to http://feedback.live.com:

I have just watched the Mix08 opening keynote where IE8 was being demonstrated. This included a new feature - Activities. The first thing I thought was "This would be great inside Live Messenger".
Simple scenario: someone I'm chatting with sends me an address. Wouldn't it be great if I could select that address and up pops a Virtual Earth map showing that address?
The great thing about Activities is that Microsoft are trying to introduce them as a standard hence any Activity that works on IE8 would (in theory) work on Messenger as well.

[which I've added to my feedback lista as well]

What do you think? Would you like to see Activities in live Messenger? let me know in the comments.

-Jamie

P.S. If you want to understand exactly what Activities and Web Slices are then take a look at this video on Activities:

and this one on web slices:

Presence pontification

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:37:23 GMT

The notion of presence is a fairly big deal in Windows Live right now. Primarily Windows Live users express their presence through the use of Windows Live Messenger which can convey whether you are online, offline, away, in a meeting etc ... and in turn can also show the presence of your various contacts. Supplementary to that is the Messenger Presence API and IM Control which enables someone to publish their presence (remember, as defined by Windows Live Messenger) on any web page just like I'm doing here:

Very useful stuff.

I said "fairly big deal" and that's because I'm of the opinion that there are still a few shortcomings with how presence is implemented by Windows Live. Namely:

Presence is only published from Windows Live Messenger
We can't control who can see our presence
There isn't much presence information available

I'll expand on those points here.

1. Presence is only published from Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live ID is used for user authentication in countless places other than Windows Live Messenger. Off the top of my head I can think of MSDN forums, Zune Social, Connect, Office Live Workgroups, XBox Live, Expedia, MSN, Windows Live Spaces & Hotmail that all use Windows Live ID for user authentication, so if I'm using one of those services then surely I'm online. Right? Why shouldn't that be reflected in my Messenger status?

Of course, Microsoft are typically sensitive to privacy around the Windows Live ID so a person would have to specify that they are allowing this type of information should be published.

2. We can't control who can see our presence

Currently all of our contacts see the same status, we can't specify a different status for different contacts or groups of contacts. This is one of my pet peeves about Windows Live Messenger and I've seen many submissions on Connect that agree with me. I hope that the advent of Windows Live Groups will also bring with it the ability to specify a different status for each group of contacts.

3. There isn't much presence information available

Following on from what I said above, instead of the rather monotonous "Online" a person's Messenger status could instead read something like "Online on Zune Social" or "Browsing flights on Expedia" (I'm sure Expedia wouldn't be averse to the extra publicity).

So that covers the WHAT, but there's nothing that currently covers the WHERE. With the increasing proliferation of GPS-enabled phones there's a real opportunity for publishing your location to anyone whom you may want to see it. I've talked a lot about this before, I see a lot of value in being able to know where my family and friends are.

Similarly, why stop at my real life presence? I remain convinced that Microsoft will be releasing a Second Life competitor later this year so why shouldn't my virtual world status be reflected in my real-life status also?

Like I say, Messenger Presence can be improved a great deal. I hope we don't have to wait too long to see some of these improvements.

-Jamie

Messenger pervades

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:48:11 GMT

The ability to send people instant messages on the Live Messenger platform is expanding. Already it is possible to send/receive from IMs from your XBox, its now possible from Windows Media Center, and I strongly suspect that instant messaging will be built into Zune Social soon as well.

As Messenger starts to permeate other Microsoft properties I believe the requirement to show different statuses to different groups of people becomes more important. I personally would like the ability to appear online to all my work colleagues but offline to everyone else so that I don't get distracted whilst I'm at work; I foresee that people would like to (for example) appear online to all their Xbox buddies while they're using XBox Live but offline to everyone else. This functionality has been requested by people since version 8.0 of Live Messenger but still it hasn't been provided, I hope that changes in the upcoming version 9.0.

With this in mind I have just posted the following suggestion to the forums at Zune Social:

Zune Social is cool in that you can see who likes the same music as you and meet them etc... but any conversation that you have is via messages that you leave in their [Zune Social] inbox.
Hence, I'd love the ability to IM people from within Zune Social. The newly released Messenger Presence API and Messenger IM Control (http://dev.live.com/messenger/) could easily provide this ability. So, my request is that you give us the ability to see if people are online and IM them from Zune Social (to all the privacy advocates out there...don't worry...the Presence API puts you in charge of who can IM you.)
Moreover, I'd like the ability to add people to my list of contacts. If they automatically appeared in a contact group called (e.g.) "Zune Social" then so much the better.

If you're a Zune Social member and you think this would be a good idea, click through and add your weight to my request.

cheers

Jamie

InsideMessenger grows up

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:41:51 GMT

My last blog entry (I believe that Agents are our future...) talked about my hopes for IM bots eventually infiltrating our lives...all for our benefit of course. Since then I've been exploring bots a little bit more and was delighted to find that the Inside Messenger bot (chat@insidemessenger.com) has had a new release. There are some great capabilities within Inside Messenger now but the one that really caught my eye was the ability to view videos from Youtube, MSN Video, Reuters, and Google Video. The beauty of this feature is that you can search for and view videos from right within your conversation window - it doesn't launch you into a web page. Here's a screen shot from a search I did for "Zune":

I love this. Interacting with a search engine that actually replies to you in natural language is far preferable (to me) than a monotonous web page.

There's some other nice features too. You can play games...

...do Amazon searches

and view Google calendars. I don't have a screen shot of that cos I don't have a Google Calendar. I'm reliably informed that support for Windows Live Calendar will come just as soon as an API is released for it.

So what are you waiting for? Go and add chat@insidemessenger.com to your Messenger contacts and check out what's on offer.

-Jamie

I believe that Agents are our future...

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:56:54 GMT

...build them well and let them lead the way!!

On 12th October 2006 Microsoft purchased Colloquis, a provider of automated service agents. To me, and most probably you, that is better described as bots that you can talk to in Windows Messenger and nowadays the product is called Windows Live Agents. The team formerly known as Colloquis have a blog here that is regularly updated.

I was hoping that when Colloquis were purchased this would usher in a new era of automated interaction agents that simplify my online life. No longer would I have to browse to web pages in order to do the mundane things that I have to do as part of my daily routine. Unfortunately we haven't reached that tipping point yet. I look forward to the day when I am able to view my bank balance, pay my bills, purchase things from Amazon, book flights, view live flight information, update personal details that people may have about me and do countless other things that I haven't thought of yet all from within my Live Messenger window. The first thing I would like to see would be an agent that enables me to update all the information that I have stored at http://account.live.com. That would be a great way for Microsoft to demonstrate the capabilities of Windows Live Agents while at the same time providing a really useful service.

So, none of this stuff really exists at the moment though I did however find the Microsoft Automated Service Agent site which leads me to think that Microsoft ARE pushing something in this area. However, reading through the blurb it seems as if Microsoft envisage these agents being deployed within a web site. That's not what I want at all though - I want to be able to interact with these things from the convenience of my IM client - without having to go near a web browser. I cross my fingers that this will happen.

Will we reach the agent tipping point soon? I don't think it is going to happen in the near future, but it will do one day.

-Jamie

Build your contacts. Get a messenger gadget on your signature.

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:39:13 GMT

See the image below? If you want one (one which actually does something - unlike the one below) adding to your email signature or your blog site then head to www.messengerbuttons.com and get one for yourself.

-Jamie

Live Messenger IM Control

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:54:14 GMT

Check it out...IM me right from inside my blog!

That, my friend, is cool (if it works)!

Microsoft Presence. A rival to Twitter?

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 04:16:32 GMT

Nathan Weinberg theorises that the upcoming Messenger Presence might present a challenge to Twitter if the ability to update your Messenger Status from anywhere is offered. The following screenshot shows my current Messenger Status (yeah, I had to get a dig in about this :) )

Not quite sure I agree with Nathan's optimism. Twitter's raison d'etre is to answer the question "What Am I doing?" whereas that of Messenger status is slightly different. Nathan is correct that Messenger's status feature is basically the same as Twitter's whole feature set with the significant exception that it doesn't offer the ability to update it in so many ways as Twitter does. However, Messenger Status has never been marketed as such and hence Twitter has stolen a march. Of course, the one thing that Microsoft's Live Messenger has going for it is millions and millions of users whereas Twitter is still firmly in early adopter phase so it'll be interesting to see if Microsoft try and capitalise on that user base and spin Messenger status as something that is effectively a clone of Twitter. I hadn't ever actually considered Messenger Status as being basically the same as Twitter so I'm glad Nathan has pulled the wool back from over my eyes. You can bet that people within Microsoft haven't been as blinkered as me!

Regardless of that, the release of Microsoft Presence is an interesting move. If Microsoft have any sense they will simultaneously release a Facebook app, a Live Spaces gadget and possibly a Popfly block that all make use of the Messenger Presence service. Or perhaps they're relying on their army of developers to do that. Got any titbits for us Angus?

-Jamie

Windows Live: Search Macros in Messenger

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:14:06 GMT

[This blog entry was originally published here]

A few weeks ago I published information about a Live Search Macro that I had built to search for for SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) related community content. You can read about it here and try the macro out for yourself here.

That's not why I'm posting though. I've had what I think is a cool idea that is based on Live Search Macros. Imagine if you could query one of these search macro without having to fire up a web page. Imagine if you could query it from right within Live Messenger. If the Windows Live team automatically provided a Windows Live Agent for every single search macro it would be a simple job to add the agent to one's contact list and fire search queries against the search macro from right within Live Messenger. I guess the email addresses for the agents would be consistent, perhaps for mine they could use ssis@liveagents.com???

Hopefully the Windows Live team are way ahead of me on this one and are already building this functionality. If they aren't, they should be.

In other Windows Live Agent related news, I've heard a whisper that an SDK for building your own agents will be appearing sometime soon. Very cool indeed! The Windows Live Agents team have a blog but unfortunately there's nothing on it yet. I've got it on my blogreader, just in case.

If you want to get a taster of what Windows Live Agents actually are, add these email addresses to your messenger contact lists:

moviescout@botmetro.net - Find out what movies are playing near to you and when. This is a brilliant service but only works in the US unfortunately. Hopefully a UK version will be returned before I return there.
dubyabot@hotmail.com - Priceless quotes from the undisputed champion of quotable politicians
wilma@live.com - Find out what Live Messenger can do that you didn't already know about
secratarybot@hotmail.com - Access on online calendar, news, weather, contacts, calculator and more

Want to know more? These links will help:

-Jamie

UPDATE: They've started blogging - first post is here: http://windowsliveagents.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!5BCD45E519E07634!144.entry. They also have a community developer forum at http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1687&SiteID=1

Windows Live: Messenger on your mobile

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:11:53 GMT

[This blog entry was originally published here]

If you are one of the more than 240 million users of Live/MSN Messenger and you have a web browser on your phone then as of today you can stay signed-in to Live messenger even when you're out and about. If you follow http://mobile.live.com from your phone you *should* see the link to login. This guy has got screenshots.

Unfortunately there seems to be a little foible with it. When I went there I saw the same screen that I would have seen had I gone there yesterday. I don't know why, maybe its cached on my phone or something. Anyway, the trick to getting this working is as follows:

Go to http://mobile.live.com/GoLive/ from your desktop computer
Click "Messenger beta"
Click the "Send To Mobile" link

You'll receive a text message with a link that you can open to start using the service.

Obviously this service suffers a few problems because of its inherent delivery mechanism. There is no way of being notified that someone has sent you a message (unless you refresh the page) so really the only way this becomes useful is if you start the conversation yourself. Indeed, as I was writing this blog entry I got a call from James who said to me "Why haven't you replied to my IM message?" The reason was that I didn't know he'd sent it because I was signed in on my mobile!

Aside from that fairly gargantuan barrier to adoption it suffers a few other problems. Its inherently obviously pretty slow. And until unlimited data tariffs are introduced its going to be costly if you use it a lot. Parents watch out!

I fully expect Microsoft to come out with a mobile client app for Live Messenger (hopefully cross-platform) in the not too distant future but until then, this is the best option.

-Jamie

Technorati tags: Live Messenger

Windows Live: XBOX and Live Messenger converge

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:52:08 GMT

[This blog entry was originally published here]

Interesting Windows Live related news coming from Microsoft today. May will see the arrival of Live Messenger for XBOX 360. XBOX Live members will now be able to interact with the 260million strong Live Messenger user base directly from their XBOX 360. Furthermore, there will be new features specifically for XBOX users such as:

"What game am I playing currently?" (Very similar to "What am I currently listening to?" in conventional Live Messenger)
"Let me boast about my high scores to all of my mates"
"Publish my gamer tag"
Personalised XBOX content on Marketplace.

What makes this good news for Microsoft (and their ad partners) is that they will now be able to do much better advertising. If they know that someone is an XBOX live member then advertisments delivered to that person through all the many channels (e.g. MSN, Live Messenger, Live Search etc...) can be much more targeted and, potentially, personalised. Whether Microsoft have the good sense to reap the benefits or not of doing this will remain to be seen.

This move from Microsoft has been long overdue. Finally we are starting to see complementary services from Windows Live that build upon their software heritage. As I have said before, Microsoft will not win the battle for online hearts and minds by trying to ape what their competitors are doing. They need to build online services that complement what they already have out there. The advantage Microsoft have got is that they already touch their customers in so many different facets (at work, at home, MSN, media, gaming, mobile etc...); or, as I said previously, they have their fingers in so many pies. Windows Live can help to cross-sell all those currently disparate offerings. The disadvantage Microsoft have is the "lumbering beast" factor. Their competitors are newer and nimbler and can push their services out to consumers alot quicker than Microsoft can.

Thank you to Kip Kniskern for making me aware of this news.

Incidentally, another feature that I once requested has since appeared in Live.com. Three months ago back in January 2007 I suggested that Microsoft should lean more on their Windows heritage and introduce the equivalent of Windows' Start button into Live.com. Well three months on it transpires that they done just that and pleasingly it looks exactly the same as the new Start menu icon in Windows Vista.

I have said before that Microsoft need to promote the consistent look-and-feel on Windows Live that has served them so well over the past 12 years and clearly they agree. The introduction of the Windows start menu in Windows Live is a step in the right direction.

Lastly just to make you aware, for all Windows Live related opinion from Conchango head to http://blogs.conchango.com/tags/Windows+Live/default.aspx where my learned colleague (and fellow LUFC tolerator/sufferer) Keni Barwick and I are starting to build up a backlog of material. Or, you can just subscribe to our Windows Live RSS feed.

For XBOX related items subscribe to our XBOX feed.

-Jamie