During an interesting course of events today, (which just got more interesting as the Windows Live team just released Messenger in the Windows Live Hotmail client and in People! This is good news!) which started out by reading Docextreme’s How long Have You Been Using Windows Live in which he asks how long have you been using these Microsoft services, I thought to myself, gee, I don’t know. I know it’s been a while. So, for grins, I went to the “View your account” found in the upper right hand corner of most web pages.
That takes you to a page showing your account details, one of which is your account creation date. So, it turns out that I just had my ten year anniversary! The account was Registered since: March 20, 1999. Funny thing, though, that I know this isn’t my first Hotmail account. I’ve had Hotmail accounts before Microsoft bought them. So, I thought to myself, when did “HoTMaiL” come about? And for that, I went to Wikipedia and looked up Hotmail. I don’t recall which Passport or Live ID I used back then. I’ve used a number over the ages. But my, how time flies!
I continued to read this article.
As part of the update, Microsoft also added integrated capability for instant messaging with contacts on the Windows Live Messenger service. The feature is the realization of a project that began as "Windows Live Web Messenger" in 2007, a replacement for the outdated "MSN Web Messenger" service that was first launched back in August 2004. It was noted that the original "Windows Live Web Messenger" featured tabbed conversations in a "conversation workspace", however since its integration with Hotmail this has since been removed.
Windows Live Web Messenger
OK – so I’ve used the MSN Web Messenger, but not this Windows Live Web Messenger. My first thought was that it’s just a new name for the same thing, but the article seemed to indicate it has additional features, etc. OK. I must try it. So, I highlighted the “Windows Live Web Messenger” in the article and used the Google accelerator.
I found what I was looking for. It’s the first returned item and is located at http://messidog.live.com. So, I clicked it. And I got this:
An error has occurred.
There's a problem with the Windows Live Web Messenger service right now. Please try signing in again later. If you have a different account, you may want to try signing in with that one.
Foiled! So, Messidog is missing in action. But it isn’t the same thing as webmessenger. No matter – I can pull the Google cached page. And I did. I got this:
So it really existed! But it’s gone. And this cached image is only a week old. So, it just went missing. What does it mean? Perhaps I just caught it on a bad day? Well, we still have the old msn webmessenger. It’s been around for a long time, and we can use that! Or can we… I went there, http://webmessenger.msn.com and got this nice message:
Foiled again! Well, almost – this version still works even if complaining about Internet Explorer 8, but it still has the limitation of only being logged in once. So, I got this message pop up:
But the memories… A nice thing about this old version, it splits my contacts into two groups. The top group are those logged in, and the bottom those that are offline. I really miss that view of my contacts. I now have to hunt through massive lists of groups and categories, and other things to see who’s there, and who is not. (Update: It turns out this feature is configurable in the newest release as is whether groups display or not. See the comments for details.)
Anyway, the point of this otherwise pointless post is to wonder if messidog is gone for good or just missing in action? And, since the integration of Live Messenger with Live Hotmail has not happened, what is the future of that? I’ve experienced momentary instances where it did work. It just appeared and just as quickly disappeared. But after all this time, it hasn’t been rolled out.
And, if things go my way, it never will be. Not, at least, in the manner that I think it was originally envisioned. My hope is that the new Messenger Bar that’s available for any web site to use will actually be used on the Windows Live web sites. The original plan allowed Messenger use while using email. The Messenger Bar could allow access from anywhere in Windows Live, and, if you’re familiar with Facebook, it looks like the bar at the bottom of Facebook pages. Here are a couple pages that are using it.
Try it out, and see what you think. They’re probably still working some of the kinks out of it, but this could be a great new feature of Windows Live.
UPDATE: As luck would have it, the day I posted this (04/21/09) the Windows Live team rolled out integrated Messenger in Hotmail and People.
