Ok, so after the .NET branding disaster in the early 2000 where Microsoft started naming every product possible .NET, the “Live” branding seems like a repeat of that disaster. Microsoft likes to brand everything “Live” these days with Windows Live, Live Search, Live Mesh, Windows Live Messenger, Live Spaces, … Anyway, I am not super clear on what Live stands for anymore, since I see both client apps and web apps branded with “Live”.

Anyhow, this post is not about branding. It’s about the latest release of the Windows Live suite of web apps. This is a large release with many online services getting an upgrade. I am not going to review everything, but here is what I looked at:

  • Windows Live Home. Click on the link to see for yourself. The new UI looks pretty sexy, but functionally, I think this doesn’t compare to my default homepage which is iGoogle.com. The Windows Live guys tried to ride the trend of social networking, so the new Windows Live Home looks like a mashup of Facebook Friends feed/Twitter, my inbox and some random news. Sorry, you are not going to know what exactly I want on my home page (if you really want to be my home page), and I need my RSS feeds, stock tickers, news, etc. I do applaud Microsoft’s move to incorporate my activities on non-Microsoft properties into the feed though, such as twitter, Flickr, Yelp, etc.
The new look of Windows Live Home

The new look of Windows Live Home

  • Windows Live Photos. I am a long-time user of Picasa. The client software and the online web album work together flawlessly and makes a great combination. The Windows Live Photos has some UI glitz with Silverlight-enabled slideshow, and it’s also got some neat tagging feature, but it’s a long way from what Picasa Web Album has to offer. Things like lightweight photo editing and commenting are completely missing. Ok, I am ont going to switch anytime soon. I do have to say that the Windows Live Photo Gallery(the client software) offers a unique feature that Picasa doesn’t have though, which is picture stitching. Although Windows Live Photo Gallery is still in beta, I found it to be very stable in my testing.
Silverlight-enabled Slideshow on Windows Live Photos

Silverlight-enabled Slideshow on Windows Live Photos

  • Windows Live Events. I haven’t tested what’s new since this release, but about a month ago, I tried using this service to send out an invite. Well, it went into the Junk mailbox for a couple of my friends. Good thing I called them :) I don’t see any reason yet why I would stop using Evite.
Windows Live Events

Windows Live Events

  • Windows Live SkyDrive. SkyDrive offers a generous 25 GB for you to store anything, including photos, videos and documents. It’s a great idea (free storage!), but for it to work seamlessly, there needs to be a client plugin for both Mac and Windows. Users should be able to use this online storage as if it’s local. But this is not the case with SkyDrive (at least not yet).
Windows Live SkyDrive

Windows Live SkyDrive

All in all, this release is a good effort on Microsoft’s part. It seems to me that they are trying too hard to follow the social networking trend in this release and took away some of the core ingredients of what a home should be like. The glitzy UI will make you want to use these services, but when you try to, they just don’t compare with other online services such as iGoogle, Picasa, and Evite.

If you would like to read the official release blog post from the Windows Live Team, you can read it here.

- J.

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