live services
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Microsoft Photosynth Goes to Work: Integrates With Virtual Earth
Microsoft announced today that it will now give its commerical partners the option to mash up Virtual Earth and Photosynth to create immersive 3D photo experiences. In order to facilitate this, Microsoft also announced the availability of commercial licenses for Photosynth. These commercial licenses remove the restrictions on the number of images a user can use, for example. This could be a great solution for real estate agents, who can easily create an immersive 3D view of a house, retailers who want to give customers a close-up view of a product, or travel businesses that might want to show off a certain destination.
Old Habits Die Hard: MapQuest Still #1 Mapping Service
MapQuest was once the unquestioned leader among online mapping services. And while others like Google Maps or Microsoft's Live Search Maps offer a more modern interface and far more features than MapQuest, the latest data from Hitwise shows that MapQuest still commands almost 40% of the market. Even on the fast-moving Internet, old habits clearly only die very slowly.
Windows Live Essentials Connect Your Desktop to the Cloud
In November, Microsoft released a major update to its Windows Live online services. Today, Microsoft also released the new versions of its Windows Live Essentials desktop tools that accompany the online services. The Windows Live Essentials suite includes updates for Live Mail, Live Messenger, Live Writer, Live Photo Gallery, Live Movie Maker, Live Toolbar, Office Outlook Connector, and Windows Live Family Safety. There are also a two new additions: Windows Live Sync and the Office Live Add-In. Silverlight is now also part of the Live Essentials suite.
Microsoft's New Photo Sharing Service: Live Photos
Microsoft today announced a new photo sharing product, Microsoft Live Photos, which integrates very nicely with Microsoft's Windows Live Photo Gallery desktop photo application, and is yet another product in the long list of Windows Live services that Microsoft introduced today. In many respects, Live Photos clearly competes directly with Yahoo's Flickr, though while it has a lot of Flickr's features, its focus is more on sharing pictures with a small group of friends or family than with the whole Internet. We have been using Live Photos for about two months now, and our overall impression is extremely positive.
Microsoft Releases Major Update to Windows Live: New Applications and Third-Party Integration
Microsoft just announced the availability of a number of new and updated online applications in its Windows Live suite: Windows Live Photos, Profiles, People, and Groups. In addition, Microsoft also announced that it will allow its users to integrate content from a large number third-party services, including Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, StumbleUpon, TripIt, Twitter, and Yelp. Microsoft will begin rolling out these new services to U.S. customers in the coming weeks and expects them to be available globally in 54 countries by early 2009.
Hitwise: Microsoft Cashback is Working
When Microsoft announced the launch of its Live Search Cashback rebate program, it quickly became the laughingstock of the tech blogosphere and this week's launch of Live SearchPerks definitely did not help. However, according to the latest data from Hitwise, Microsoft's Cashback promotion is actually working and is helping live.com to keep its search traffic stable, even as Google's market share is rising.
Microsoft Updates Hotmail: Faster Interface and More Storage
Microsoft is slowly releasing a new version Windows Live Hotmail this week, though, as LiveSide.net reports, many users are having problems with the new design and want Microsoft to revert back to the old layout. We have been looking at the new version of Hotmail for most of the morning and have not seen any problems with it so far. The new layout will take some getting used to, but overall, it is simpler and faster than the old Hotmail and Microsoft has significantly increased the storage limit.
Live Search: Powerset Integration Already Going Live
Microsoft only acquired the semantic search engine Powerset a little more than a month ago, but today, the Powerset team announced the first integration of its search technology into Microsoft's Live Search. Specifically, Live Search will now show better instant answers for queries like "San Francisco weather" and return better results based on Freebase and Wikipedia articles. Currently, these Powerset enhanced results will only appear for a random set of users, but over time, we assume that most of these features will be rolled out for everybody.
Is Yahoo Planning Its Own Live ID?
According to a tip from one of our readers, Yahoo is planning to open up its services even wider and allow users to sign in without having to use a Yahoo ID. According to our tipster, Yahoo would allow you to log into Yahoo's services while using an email address from any other provider, similar to what Microsoft is doing with its Windows Live ID. If true, this would certainly be in line with some of the announcements that Yahoo made about it's Yahoo Open strategy.
Microsoft Relaunches Windowslive.com as a Community Site
Until now, Microsoft had used WindowsLive.com as the main hub for getting information about its Live branded services like Messenger, Hotmail, Spaces, SkyDrive, and Photo Gallery. Today, Microsoft has re-launched the site as a community site, where users can exchange information and ideas about how to best use these tools. As Marty Collins, the Windows Live senior marketing manager explained to us in an interview last week, the idea behind this redesign is to better explain to users how they can use these services together, as well as fostering an active user community.
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