As we all now know Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have RTMed and are well underway for their release on October 22nd 2009, but I doubt this date will only see Windows 7 released. I imagine there will be several software and service releases around this date, whether it be betas or final releases, Live Mesh for on but most importantly Windows Live Wave 4.
What little we know
Information is slowly beginning to come out of Redmond with regards to the next wave of Windows Live as seen in Live Side articles “Sneak peek of what’s coming in Windows Live Movie Maker” and “Windows 7 RTMs: Where’s Windows Live?”. This is probably just the start of the information that will start coming out about Windows Live Wave 4 and how it will complete Windows.
What I want to see
With Wave 3 we saw a huge amount of change and improvement with both the online offerings and the essentials download, both incorporating greater integration between the two and integration with other services on the internet, such as Twitter, Flickr and Facebook. What I hope/think we will be seeing soon in the next wave are based around this approach of aggregating users’ online profiles into one place; Microsoft will not want to miss out on any chance to increase their presence in any sphere of the web.
Tighter integration with Twitter and Facebook is expected from me as Microsoft will want to be a major competitor in field currently dominated by the likes of Tweetdeck, Twittie, Twitterific, Twhirl; and seemingly any other word with Tw at the front. There are a number of ways Microsoft could do this but I expect to see Messenger and Mail expanded to incorporate these two services and in doing so I would hope to see Facebook Chat supported by Messenger. The current “What’s New” feature seen across several places within Windows Live is alright but I hardly ever look at it, I think a better way would be for live updates to be made in the messenger windows of users as illustrated below.
It could also be that updates made to Twitter and Facebook by a contact could be queued up when the user is offline so they can read in much the same way as receiving messages when offline. Maybe there could be tabs on the main Messenger window for DMs, @replies and wall posts rather than advertising tabs; a much better use of tabs in my opinion seeing as they can be turned off anyway.
If a messenger contact window acted more like the Facebook Home page, but for specific contacts, it would have a far better use than the “What’s New” feature. Not only updates from the likes of Facebook but also pictures added to Photos, Flickr or Facebook could also appear in the window, all of which could be shown instantly and directly to a contact and they would be unable to miss it. I am pretty sure I miss an awful lot of what’s new with my contacts on messenger but miss very little of what is happening with my Facebook and Twitter friends.
Another aspect of Windows Live I would want to see improved is the Web Messenger as it is dismal at the moment and I have yet to use it due to much better offerings from its competitors. My hope is that the current service is more a proof of concept than anything else and the plan has always been to release a better, tighter version. Maybe a new one would use Silverlight which would make it feel more like an application and not some last minute addition to Windows Live (if it was built using Silverlight it could theoretically be downloaded instead of the current Windows Live Messenger in a similar way to Sobees).
Maybe we will see some of this kind of integration, maybe not, but either way I am looking forward to Wave 4. I am sure there will be additions that very few would even imagine.
