Adding People to your Network.
So now that you have set up your Profile and permissions on Windows Live, what next? Well maybe the next thing to do is to add some people to your Windows Live Network.
1. Go to your Home page, and then click on Add people. You will now be in the Add people page. Here you can see two choices Select from your Contact lists and Add by e-mail address. Let’s take a look at the first choice.
Select from your contact lists.
Do you have friends on Facebook, or MySpace? Or any of the other social sites shown on this page? For this how-to I’ll demonstrate with Facebook.
2. Click on the Facebook icon so that Facebook shows in the box, and then click on the blue arrow to the right. You will then be taken to the Facebook sign in page so that you can Log in. Once you have logged into Facebook, you will then be presented with all the people who you are friends with on Facebook and who are already on Windows Live. They will be shown with their avatar picture if they have one, and each person will have a tick next to their Avatar. All are selected by default.
3. Click on Next. You will then be in a new page where you can choose a message to send to those people inviting them to join your network on Windows Live, you can add them to a category and you can also add them to Windows Live Messenger and show those people on your Profile page. When you have finished with your message if you decide to include one, and decided which category to include these people in ,then just click on Send invitation. TIP. If you only want to add certain friends to your Network on Windows Live, then just click on Clear All, and then select those individuals that you do want to invite to your network by ticking the boxes next to their avatars.
4. If you do not wish to send out invites just yet, you can click on Skip this step to be taken to the Step 2 page, Add people who aren’t on Windows Live. Again all will be ticked by default. As before you can choose to send them all invites, or just click on Clear all to untick all of the boxes and just select certain friends from the list.
5. Once you have selected which Facebook friends you wish to add to your Network on Windows Live, click on Next to send an invite to those people you have chosen from that page, place them in a category, add them to Live Messenger and also show them on your profile page. When you have set all of your choices up, then click on Send Invitation.
Add by e-mail address.
6. You can also add any family or friends to your Network on Windows Live by typing in their individual e-mail addresses into the box provided and then clicking on the blue arrow. As before, you can place them in a category, add them to Live Messenger and show them on your profile page. When you have made your choices, click on Send invitation.
Searching for People on Windows Live.
The way to make new friends on Windows Live is to use the Windows Live search bar, either from your Home page or any other Windows Live page. So let’s do some searches shall we? For this how-to, I will search by some interests that a newbie might have, some favourite singers they might listen to, a favourite TV program they might watch, and also by a description that is included in their profile such as being a Grandma for example.
7. In the Bing search box on your Home page, type in Gardening. Make sure that the ‘Search People’ is selected and then click on the orange search icon. 
Up will pop a page containing all those people on Windows Live who are either interested in Gardening or have gardening in their name. There are quite a few! 82,456 results for gardening! If someone looks interesting to you and you would like to find out more about that person, then do the following,
8. Click on their Avatar and you will see a ‘drop down’ list consisting of the following choices, View profile, View photos, View photos of that person and send a private message.
9. Click on View profile to be taken to that persons profile page. Now you can find out some more details about that person.
10. Click on details to see more information. If you like what you see, you can add that person to your network directly from this page, by clicking on Add to your network where you will as before be able to send them a short message, add them to a category, show them on your profile page, and also add them to messenger.
11. Once you have selected your choices, click on Send invitation. NOTE. If no one on the first page looks interesting, then click on view more and you can then work your way through the following pages of people until you find someone who interests you and who you would like to find more information about.
12. You can search by any criteria. Let’s try some more searches. Deep Sea Diving will bring up 351 people on Windows Live who either do deep sea diving or who have that term in their profile details. Type in Granma. There are 28.027 people on Windows Live with either Granma in their name or in their profile! Let’s try a favourite TV show. I love Mock the Week and after typing in that search term, I found 33 people who also like that show! How about one of my favourite groups from the sixties, the Hollies? Up comes a page of 6.463 people on Windows Live! The first page consists only of those with Hollies in their names, so by clicking on View more at the bottom of the list of avatars, I can then work through them until I find someone who also likes the group. Now we will have something to talk about and discuss! See how easy it is to make new friends on Windows Live?
So that is how to search for people on Windows Live who have things in common with you. Try it yourself, but don’t forget to check out the persons profile details to make sure that you find out more about them before you invite them to your Network. Good hunting! (or should I say searching.)
TG 
