New Windows Live Messenger Wave 4 screenshot leaked

By damaster on February 20, 2010 6:00 PM

23 comments

A new Windows Live Messenger Wave 4 screenshot seems to have surfaced on the web via a person named Zukona (thanks to MessengerAdictos.com), who claims that the screenshot is from Messenger Wave 4 Milestone 3. While we can’t be sure of the integrity of the screenshot, the new screenshot does reveal to us some very interesting new features, and it does look very similar to the screenshot leaked a few months ago. Here’s the latest leaked screenshot:

So the new Messenger build still retains the collapsible “social” pane on the left, but there’s several new features that we’ve noticed:

New Facebook and other social networks integration – not just Windows Phone 7 Series is getting it, but the new Windows Live Messenger allows you to connect to multiple social networks besides Windows Live, and Facebook is possibly one of the many social networks available. Notice the “Connected to” button on the bottom-right hand corner:

It appears that updates on Facebook, including comments, can be directly shown within Messenger (in the middle pane). What’s more we’ve noticed that the contact names in the Facebook pane has the “status blip” next to it as well, indicating either a possible integration of Messenger and Facebook contacts, or Messenger will support Facebook Chat protocol (now that Facebook just opened up to XMPP)
Ability to directly comment on social updates on Windows Live – we briefly speculated on this on our coverage of Windows Phone 7 Series, and now this screenshot pretty much confirmed what we said. In Wave 3, you could only leave comments on a user’s Profile page, and these comments were never specific to any of their social updates. With Wave 4, you are now able to directly comment on each of the social updates that you see on Windows Live (as shown on the left pane) – a very much requested feature in the Wave 3 days!
Better SkyDrive and Photos integration – as you can see on the left pane, it features a large image preview for your contact’s updates on Windows Live Photos, allowing quick access to albums uploaded by your contacts. We’re also curious as to what the “via SkyDrive” means below the status update.
More than just “Social” – looking at the top Zune-like navigation, you can see that besides “Social” and “Friends”, there’s two new categories available for “MSN” and “Games”.
New Messenger emoticons coming? – check out the contact “Terry Adams” on the right-hand side of the screenshot, do I see a new Messenger emoticon?

Pretty exciting stuff there! But let us know what you think about the new Messenger by leaving us a comment below!

Posted in News | Tags: Messenger, Wave 4, Windows Live

Comments

http://menthix.net/ Menthix

:( Whatever happened to this thing called an instant messenger client?

Not only there are status blips in the middle columns, There also seem to be two status blips in the upper right, online online and one offiline. Facebook chat integration seems plausible, or multiple Live Messenger accounts.

Other thing is Half-Life 2 icon behind the name of one of the contacts in the right pane. Integration with Xbox Live / Games for Windows?
http://blog.mynetx.net/ mynetx

My first impression is that Messenger fully takes the road to socializing. Look at the Activity Stream: We see comment sources like “from SkyDrive” and “from Facebook”. But wait — does the right pane mean that I can only view contacts from one Messenger category at a time?

Additionally, as we can see from the display picture of the signed in user, this is from a marketing section: Christina is the default person for demo shots. Also, what did the original red arrows explain?

http://menthix.net/ Menthix

Considering the timing my guess it this is either leaked from a MVP session (someone was apparently already kicked for leaking information from there)… or early material for MIX.

The annoying thing is the only screenshots which seem to leak is this kind of massive ugly window. Would very much love to see how it looks if you click ‘Friends’ instead of ‘Social’ and click the bottom on the top right which I still assume/hope will collapse the nonsense and leave people with a decent contactslist.

EDIT: Hmm, Zukona seems to be famous for leaking massive amounts of Windows 7 contents too,so probably not an MVP :).
Damaster – LiveSide.net

I’m sure clicking the arrow on the “Favorites” will allow you to see the “full” view of your contact list.

And I agree with you, it does seem like this is a demo shot used for promotion/press purposes, possibly not taken directly of the application by Zukona. Either way it still reveals some good info though!

Bram

the new emoticon is just the halflife icon, which means he’s playing half life 2.

Damaster – LiveSide.net

You’re right! Sorry the screenshot is quite blurry. On closer look it does indeed looks liek the Half Life icon – perhaps another new feature?

http://www.facebook.com/khris Khristopher Ranger

It’s got way too much going on. I hope there is a way to minimize it and make it look like an IM program, instead of a browser.
olib123

Seems as if it may be based on WPF, something about the rendering has a whiff of it about it.
bob e

I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.
Too much information on screen I prefer a simple interface.
Zukona

Zukona
2 bob e
top right corner – there is “hide all stuff” button
Chris

as long as I can close certin sections I’ll be happy.
http://aflspace.com/ Phillip Molly Malone

I don’t know about you guys, but I want to see less leaked photos and more RELEASING THE FRIGGING PRODUCT! I thought MSs reason for splitting the Essential Apps out of Win7 was to release updates faster! Has it been almost a year since the last one? Just saying!

CookieRevised

Almost a year??? The last release was in August… That is barely over half a year ago…

http://aflspace.com/ Phillip Molly Malone

Sorry, 6 months! You understand that is 6 months? I would hardly call
that moer often. With the products out of the OS, they should be doing
updates monthly!

Damaster – LiveSide.net

To be honest, I wouldn’t want to update my Messenger (or the entire Windows Live Essentials) once every month, that is way too troublesome even just for me, imagine the complaints for the average consumer. I just cannot imagine my mother updating/installing Messenger every month, once every 6 months sounds much more reasonable.

Joe

Sign up and use Windows Live Messenger on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/r.php?referrer=112&app_id=30713015083
http://twitter.com/surilamin surilamin

While I understand having a social component to messenger, I’m not sure if this is the right direction to go towards. This seems way to bloated and a simpler interface would be prefered. If you’ve ever used the Blu twitter app, I think the blu team would do a better job of creating a simple messenger client based on wpf. I could be wrong, and this may be a great product when I use the actual product. However, judging by this screenshot, it appears as though I will be dissappointed.
bartw78

Finally we start to see proper integration. Be as it might, I love it. No more messing about with 10 different screens for 10 different social networks. Keep up the work Microsoft and bring it all together. Saying that, dont forget the one thing that made this program so popular; chatting!
CluckAduck

This is hideous. And the ad takes up half the contact list. DO NOT WANT.
eva5445545454

I doubt that MS will support XMPP but even if they would (chance is .1%) I can’t imagine users would switch back to WLM. It’s too late for MS. They lost the IM battle because they slept almost 10 years. Serious, what changed from 1999 til today? A new UI, 500% more ads, a slooow messenger and lots of trouble (offline message system not available is standard since weeks) with the software? What’s positive? I can’t think of ONE thing :|
robinson

You can find here a certified screenshot of the new emoticon panel : http://www.wikikou.fr/windows-live-messenger-2010-facebook-reseau-sociaux-interface-actualite-1509.html
tcaffeine

thats the most ugly thing i ever seen if that going to be a default ill be using another client for messaging. :(
http://seguidoresdelreydereyes.blogspot.com/ Seguidores del REY de reyes

Parece que va a ser una excelente versión de live messenger.

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