The stuff you care about, managed—SHAZAM!

I’m Ian Tien, part of the Windows Live product management team here in sunny Redmond, Washington, USA.

I’m here to talk about our lives online—ever feel like yours is too complicated?

Too many online accounts, too many applications installed, too many places where your files are stored—in your e-mail account, your USB drive, the CDs you’ve burned, your old PC, your new PC, in your digital camera, in your phone (which also has a camera)…

If managing all your digital stuff became easier, wouldn’t that be AWESOME?

Here are three ways Windows Live helps simplify your life:

1) Share your favorites!

I LOVE this feature. It synchronizes my favorites (also known as “bookmarks”) in Internet Explorer across my laptop at work and my PC at home:

All I need is Windows Live Toolbar on both computers,* and I can get to my favorite websites from either computer, and save new sites to both machines.

But let’s say I’m on vacation and I don’t bring my own computer—then what?

Sha-zam!

My bookmarks are also synchronized to my Windows Live account on the web:

So I can reach them from any computer (even my Apple Laptop).

You know what else I do with favorites? Share them with friends!

No, silly, I don’t mean e-mailing links to people—that is so 1992.

I mean, “Hey, here’s a cool article!”

To share it, I’ll hit the Share button on Windows Live Toolbar, make a quick comment…

…and—SHA-ZAM!

Moments later, friends can see my new shared favorite in the “What’s new” list.

“What’s new” allows me to share my activities with the friends and family I choose to add to my Windows Live network. They can see all the content I’ve decided to share with them on my Profile page:

And on Windows Live Home, I get a running summary of what all my friends and family are doing:

Plus, I can browse through “What’s new” in Messenger, too.

And I can track my shared favorites online in the same place where my personal web favorites are stored on Windows Live SkyDrive:

It gets even better:

2) 25GB for online photo and file sharing—for free!

Wow! 25GB? Really?

That’s like, a bazillion photos.

But, not only can I share a bazillion photos, I have a FANTASTIC experience organizing, fixing, labeling and sharing them. It starts with Windows Live Photo Gallery which can automatically find photos on my computer and organize them by file folders, date (e.g. year, month, day), or based on tags I enter:

In the following example (photo of me flexing on a mountain—how I spend most weekends ), not only can Photo Gallery automatically recognize a face, it allows me to add a “people tag” to each face to label it as my own, as one of my Windows Live contacts, or as any name I type in. In addition to people tags, I can also add descriptive tags like “Weekends,” “Mount Baker,” and “Hiking.”

The tags help me find the photos later on and can be viewed from the web as well.

Plus, I can automatically (or manually) adjust color, exposure, and detail as well as crop, straighten, fix red eye and even add black & white effects.

Oh no!

I accidently saved my changes! I didn’t mean to turn myself into the Incredible Hulk forever! What do I do? 

Oh, phew! Photo Gallery can not only undo my changes, but revert to my original photo even after saving…

Fantastic.

Where was I?…

Right, now that my photos are organized, labeled, and touched up, I want to share them.

POW!

I click the Publish menu in Photo Gallery and my photos are on the web in a flash.

Here’s how the photos look in an online album:

There’s even a beautiful slide show mode where the background “glow” of each photo is designed to complement the colors of each image—Snazzy!

I can share these photos with anyone. Just click Send a link on the page with the photo (or group of photos), and either select from my Windows Live contacts or type in an e-mail address.

Information about the new album also shows up in my “What’s new” list to update people in my network with whom I've decided to share this album:

If my friends want copies, they can download the photos using Photo Gallery (or, if you’re in the US, Denmark or Ireland, as a compressed .zip file).

Okay, so now that my friends and I are happily sharing photos, could this get any better?

Yes! Mega bonus points: I can click Setup gallery sync (from the File menu in Photo Gallery) to keep my entire photo collection synchronized across my home and work PCs!

Now new photos I add or update from home or work are available on the other computer too—and I can revert to my original photos from either machine if I change my mind.

Note: At the time of this writing, gallery sync is not yet available to the public (awww…). But it’s coming soon (hurray!).

If I enjoy keeping photos up-to-date, I can use Windows Live Sync to synchronize documents between computers too—great if you’re tired of using e-mail, USB keys, and CDs to move data around, and a lifesaver if your computer ever breaks down.

By the way, these photos were taken with the 2.0 mega pixel camera in my HTC Shadow phone. 

Plus, I never worry about running out of space, because Windows Live gives me 25GB:

And that’s not any 25GB, that’s 25GB of fun, powerful and easy-to-use photo sharing that I can use with anyone in the world.

But wait! There’s more:

3) Enjoy Windows Live with your existing services!

Today, you probably use different services for sharing your photos and websites—maybe through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Yelp, etc.

How do you keep track of all those accounts?

SHA-ZAM!

Windows Live lets you integrate other social networking services, either by adding web activities from other networks into your “What’s new” list:

Or, by adding friends from those networks to Windows Live (you can even tell which Facebook friends are already on Windows Live):

The list of partners for web activities grows constantly—it also varies in different parts of the world, so check the settings on your profile to see what’s available in your area. There’s no better place to keep up to date with the people you care about.

Bottom line: If you’re looking to simplify your life online—and you like having fun sharing with friends and family without the hassle of difficult software or isolated websites—think about what your life COULD be like.

Favorites in sync. Photos in sync. Family in sync. Friends in sync.

Two words:

SHA…ZAM!

Ha ha, just kidding.

Here are the two words that make it all happen:

Windows Live.

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* Favorites sync is not available in all regions, and requires installation of Windows Live Toolbar.

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