Dave Donaldson

Windows Live Messenger IM Control

Thursday, November 08 2007

Dare Obasanjo wrote a post earlier today pointing out that the Windows Live Messenger IM Control has been released. This basically embeds Windows Live Messenger on your web site, but without forcing the person viewing your site to install the Windows Live Messenger desktop client.

I had to see this myself, so I went to Dare's blog and started a chat with him using the control. Of course he didn't know who I was, but that wasn't the point. The point was that it just works. Flawlessly. I know the concept is borrowed from Meebo, but being able to use my existing IM chat client is nice.

With Windows Live Messenger as pervasive as it is, I can see this being used a lot on blogs, forums, and any other social-networking-type site. I'll be redesigning my blog soon and I know I'm going to. To see how to actually set it up and use it, see this post by one of their Program Managers.