Microsoft Beats Yahoo and Google to Social Inbox 2.0

Yahoo and Google, in turn to their email systems and instant messaging in a little more to social networks. Both companies have demonstrated that it is impossible to play well on Facebook and MySpace. So they rushed to explore new ways to make your users news, photos and so on with people already in their address books and contact lists for commercial development.

The winner of this race is … Microsoft.

Thursday, Microsoft announced a new and complex Web sites and PC software to use the Windows Live brand. In the next two months, the company will introduce dozens of advanced features with email, IM, calendars, blogs and other services. There are also some new features, including cooperation within the group and share photos.

Much of the effort invested in the fabric of social networking features in many of these services. For example, the service has a "What's New" feed, according to the Facebook newsfeed is reproduced, may be some brief comments from users as well as links to take if they meet certain measures, such as the publication of new photos. The power is in the sample instant messaging client and new profile pages for users. And when you send an email to people who use the new food, watch their latest updates.

Microsoft also drag To get information from other sites. Users can update their accounts on services like Yelp, Flickr, Pandora and add to feed their "News" on. You can also choose your friends on other social networks in the new contact manager with Microsoft, called Windows people live.

"It is as a provider of software and services for the scenarios that are interesting," said Chris Jones, Vice President of Microsoft for Windows Live. "People are members of many social networks. To be used in different places shares, another provider of email, instant messaging providers and different types of devices. And finally, the service has value, which will help them make sense of it all. "

Yahoo and Google have brought all kinds of functions that people communicate and share information and allow photos. Google iGoogle personal page and a future review of the Yahoo home page allows you to display information from several other sites. But now, Microsoft offers a unified approach to collecting information on individuals from a variety of places and in different ways.

Microsoft is not creating too many ways to get information from their systems, but. It has the equivalent of Facebook Connect with people from their friends on other websites. And it is enabling developers of social applications of third parties in any part of this expanding array of sites.

Mr. Jones said the Windows Live profiles are designed to be easy, but you can link to pages on MySpace and other sites that have thus applications. He said the company eventually develop methods to export some data that contains information about users to other websites.

In addition, Microsoft is updating its SkyDrive service that stores files on your server and Windows Live Sync (formerly known) FolderShare to keep identical copies of files on two different computers.

Microsoft has a lot of heat, well deserved, by their nature slow and overly complex software. As services have not been introduced yet, I can not tell how well run the new Windows Live features. But the fact that companies actually introduce the first elements of social networks for your email is a sign of the discipline of Microsoft, or perhaps the lack of resolution in Google and Yahoo. Or both.