Before we get into that question, here are two things that you may not know about Windows Live ID:
- You do not need to use a @live.com, @msn.com or @hotmail.com email address to get a Windows Live ID. In fact, you can use any email address you want and make that into a Windows Live ID! Say if you have an alumni email address (i.e. me@alumni.uni.edu) from your university, you can use that as your Windows Live ID. What's good about having a Windows Live ID? Read the next point.
- Your Windows Live ID enables you to use one account for login authentication with all Microsoft web sites - but it's more than that. If a non-Microsoft web site supports Windows Live ID authentication, you can use your Windows Live ID to register for an account on that web site. Of course, the web site will still know nothing about you except that you have a Windows Live ID, so it will ask you to fill in information that they want to have about you. What's the benefit of using your Windows Live ID in this case then? Well, whenever you need to login to that web site again, all you need to remember is your Windows Live ID and its password!
Of course, the ultimate goal would be to have every web site in the world to support Windows Live ID authentication, so that you can access all of them with just one Windows Live ID account. Unfortunately, we are very far away from that goal. So, getting back to the original question of which non-Microsoft web sites are using Windows Live ID authentication? Finding them will be our challenge. Let's start by building up a list of web sites that supports Windows Live ID. I'll start off with two below. You can add to this list by responding in the comments section. Happy hunting!
Web sites that support Windows Live ID authentication:
