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Windows Live Groups Wave 4 to get group collaboration features

May 24, 2010 12:15 pm by damaster | 11 comments

With the release of Windows Live Wave 4 imminent, Picturepan2 from LiveSino.net has provided us with some exclusive screenshots of Windows Live Groups Wave 4. We’ve previously mentioned that Windows Live Group is changing its focus to be the place where you collaborate and share documents. While Microsoft gears up the new Windows Live Office in its Wave 4 release, they are also bringing Office Web Apps to Windows Live Groups. When you first login or create a new Group, this is what you will see:

Notice that in the centre it reads “A Microsoft OneNote notebook is a great way to collaborate with your group online.” This is a brand new feature in Windows Live Groups which allows people in your group to collaborate together and work on the same “OneNote notebook”. Although it does seem like Windows Live Groups only supports collaboration in OneNote Web App at the moment, although it doesn’t stop you from sharing your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents for collaboration with your Group members:

What’s also new in Groups is the ability to pin your notebooks to the “Recent” menu on the left, as well as the ability to view group e-mail history. In addition, Windows Live Groups now supports up to 40 people for Messenger Group conversations. Quite impressive!

This entry was posted in News and tagged Groups, Office Web Apps, Wave 4, Windows Live. Bookmark the permalink.

http://www.messengeradictos.com/ Rafael Valdés Camelo
I’d like to see notifications, that’s the reason why we left Windows Live Groups, it’s a cool platform, but you don’t get notifications.
Chris
So no longer part of messenger?
If it is still a part I would love to see a simple set of admin tools. So the “leader” of the group can easy bounce, temporary block or permanently ban a member from a group. Plus the limit to be raised.
- Damaster – LiveSide.net
  There’s still Groups within Messenger. That hasn’t changed. Only now you can have up to 40 people in your group for Messenger integration instead of the previous maximum limit of 20.
JohnCz
When I heard that Live Groups would be “refocus”…I thought it would be stripped of its currently functionality. I’m glad to see it is essentially intact. I doubt there are changes to Live Spaces in Wave 4, but I really would like them to do 3 basic things…
1. Do something about the adjacent Windows Live and Live Space menus. It just looks so weird to see two horizontal menus like that. The Live Space menu really should have more customizing options (position in layout, style, etc).
2. Support additional blog contributers other than just the Live Space owner.
3. Create some sort of Live Space matching/lookup tool so users can discover new content easily. If I write a blog post about my personal experience setting up Windows Media Center in my living room with pictures/video, users shouldn’t have to search for this if that is something they might be interested in.
- JSYOUNG571
  I agree with you John. Those would be some good suggestions. With all the talk about Windows Wave 4 coming, there has been no talk at all about Windows Live Space being done over. Matter of fact did they do anything to Windows Live Space during the Wave 3 update? I don’t even remember, but Windows Live Space has been looking the same for a while now. Another application you don’t hear change on period is the Windows Live Alerts. Both applications have not been spoken about in Wave 4.
  - Damaster – LiveSide.net
    If I remember correctly we just posted about Alerts changes two weeks ago: http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2010/05/13/windows-live-alerts-changes.aspx Not sure if this is Wave 4-related, but good to see that there’s some changes made to that. =)
- Chris
  If you’re clever, you can set up to three authors for one Live Space blog. Turn on Spaces Email publishing, then enter the email addresses for the contributers. Entries would have to be emailed, but it is a way to have contributors without having to give out the Windows Live ID password.
anonymous
Windows Live Groups shouldn’t be a separate place. It should be integrated with Live products and services. And why the hell can’t they add group audio/video conversations to Messenger, only text group chat with 40 people? Can I have 3-way audio conversations?
- Chris
  in my opinion groups should have all the same features plus an admin pannel. Who ever is the “host” can bounce (kick out) block (temporary) or ban (permanently) from a group
http://macrosofter.wordpress.com/ quikboy
Is it just me or is that the same logo as Live Spaces? I could be wrong of course, but it looks very similar.
- Damaster – LiveSide.net
  The Wave 3 (and Wave 4) Spaces logo looks very different from the Groups one….refer to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windows_Live_Spaces_logo.png