I don’t know about you but my friends, online friends, online communities, newsletter services, social networking sites, co-workers, clients, business networking contacts, and a few zillion other kinds of contacts are not all at the same location at the same time. 

Since all of these sites have a separate web location this requires I must go to all these locations and manage all these people from a variety of websites…all with different passwords, logins, profiles, etc…  I have had to copy and paste the same updates amongst all these services to update all who would need the information or would just be plain curious about what I am doing at that moment and submit this same information multiple times.

I don’t know about you, but I have been looking for an easier way to manage the information and to do it from one spot…it would also be really really great if it didn’t cost an arm and a leg and require a trip to the store to get it….  I found just what I NEED and it is FREE and available ONLINE and I can get it in a simple download!!!

I stumbled across a bit of information regarding managing your Web Activities through your Windows Live and Spaces profile.  I found since the recent upgrade of December 2008 there is now a way to manage many of your other social networking and online community profiles and have that information appear in your “What’s new” list. 
 
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You can also go to your own “What’s new” list once you have integrated your other networks to manage all these other profiles by using links within your “What’s new” list to go directly to various locations and post information and responses to those you communicate with most often. 

There are also options to import friends from some of these networks to your Windows Live Network and see who is already using Windows Live that you have not yet added from other networks.  These options have saved me an incredible amount of time and it permits me to be “EVERYWHERE” and take care of “EVERYTHING” as it happens rather than being horribly late and missing the opportunity or the essential facts and most of all the fun by arriving late to the show. 

Okay…so you want and need this…  What do you have to do to get this integration of services?  Logging into your Spaces or Windows Live Profile is all you need to do and then follow this link to your…

web activities

…and begin adjusting them as follows:

You will see this list (which has many more options not shown) to review and manage what services you also belong to.

 
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Simply click on the “Add” link and follow the steps that are shown to add each service to your “What’s new” list.
 
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As you can see from the caption adding Facebook information is a simple 3 step process and you can skip steps to include only the portions of the network information you want available in your “What’s new” profile. 
 
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In Twitter you can see that there is an option for limiting the feed from Twitter if you do not want everyone accessing that feed.

There are also new networks joining all the time so what you might not see today could be available tomorrow and one should check the web activities link often to see what networks can be added that were not available before.

If you have not yet downloaded all of the Windows Live services it is now a good time to do this.  They are available at this link….

http://download.live.com/ 

…and you can get the whole package.  You do not have to get them to adjust what is on your web activities feed but these additional features will enhance what information you can get to your other networks and manage that information from everywhere.
 

mindydamico120x120
Mindy D’Amico
Microsoft MVP – Windows Live