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Hotmail adds inline audio player

Sep 9, 2011 11:10 am by Kip Kniskern | 22 comments

We’ve received a couple of tips in the past 24 hours or so pointing us to what looks to be another new feature for Hotmail: an inline audio player, and with a little help from our friend F Martin Garcia we were able to confirm:

When you receive an audio file in a Hotmail message (once you allow all content to be shown), you have the option to “Play audio”, “download”, or “download as zip”. Selecting “Play audio” brings up a simple audio player, right in your email message, and you can listen directly without having to open Windows Media Player or another audio player.

A part of Hotmail Active Views, which up until now allowed for photo and video viewing (and tracking of packages), the new audio player makes working within Hotmail a bit more useful.

As usual, thanks for the tips!

This entry was posted in News and tagged ActiveViews, Hotmail. Bookmark the permalink.

Alan
This is not new, has been available for a long time now
jnt
it’s not new, as stated, and also doesn’t always work… sometimes an .mp3 will play, sometimes it won’t – depends on the mp3, but I haven’t tested enough to decipher the difference… this might’ve even been available since Wave 2, but only in IE back then. �
- jnt
  FWIW it does seem a bit more streamlined than it used to be – so maybe that tweaked it to where it works more reliably? However, as is par for the course, it still only works in IE.
  - jnt
    *that=they
http://www.LiveSide.net Kip Kniskern – LiveSide.net
Afraid we’re not in the habit of emailing audio files, and since we received 2 tips that it was new (and since we didn’t see it mentioned in the Active Views docs), we took a stab at it. Oops, well maybe it needs a bit of attention to get it working properly!
- jnt
  Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound critical of you guys at all, if I came across that way. It’s not real well known, and since not every one uses IE, a lot won’t even ever see it. And like you said, some attention might get it working better! Hopefully they’ll go all html5 with it so Chrome (and other) users can use it as well. �
jnt
or even better, they can automatically link it in with Skydrive like photos!
http://twitter.com/jjacob2k9 jjacob2k9
guys…some of your claims lately have me wondering if use the products this site is all about…this feature has been in hotmail for the past year if not longer…
- http://www.LiveSide.net Kip Kniskern – LiveSide.net
  We use a number of Windows Live products regularly, but obviously some more than others. Appreciate the feedback!
- http://www.LiveSide.net Kip Kniskern – LiveSide.net
  We use a number of Windows Live products regularly, but obviously some more than others. Appreciate the feedback!
http://twitter.com/jjacob2k9 jjacob2k9
sorry i see in the other comments this was already stated but now i cant delte my comment..wheres a delete button?
http://macrosofter.wordpress.com/ quikboy
Anyone know if this does the same in SkyDrive?
- Anonymous
  Not as far as I can see. Soon, perhaps.
http://twitter.com/galileovieira Galileo Vieira
Galileo from the Hotmail team here. This is in fact something we’ve had for a while now. For me personally, it’s a useful feature for listenening to the voicemail recordings that my VOIP provider emails me.
�
We’re glad that Hotmail users continue to find little surprises like this one every once in a while. We’ve been adding new features, or improving old ones, at a more frequent pace recently. Liveside does a great job of catching these. Wondering if there are any favorite features out there, like Sweep, Aliases, SkyDrive attachments, or others?
- TheNarg
  Aliases is my favorite newer feature. I only use aliases and keep my main email address private. Never use sweep. I just work with one message at a time. Skydive attachments is nice, too. Never liked how gmail mangled Word doc attachments. Wish there was a PDF viewer, however, which gmail has had for some time. Also wish subfolders could collapse. I use a lot of them to organize emails, and the list is now pretty long. Overall, very pleased with the Hotmail team’s work!
  - Galileo Vieira
    I’ve started using aliases as well. I’m a big fan of using my own domain with Hotmail, so I used to have a ton of different emails for this very purpose. Now with aliases it’s much easier to do the same thing without having to keep logging in and out of all these different email addresses I have. As for you requestes, we’ll be showing some cool new things at our event on Oct. 3rd, so stay tuned!
    - Mattbiel
      Galileo -
      My Hotmail account was just completely wiped out. all my history of messages, all my contacts, all my folder…all say ZERO. This was not a hack but a technical glitch on Microsoft/Hotmail. If this happened to you, who would you contact? I have spent all day trying to break through the fortress that is Microsoft and have had no luck getting anyone to help me. Very scary, very disconcerting. There should be SOMEONE that can help me, right? The Windows Live help forums are blowing up with people that are having the same issue…
      - Galileo Vieira
        Sorry to hear this, really am. Can you send me some kind of PM with your email address?
      - Mattbiel
        thank you for replying! my ray of hope….I will join twitter and try to message you there…
Joe
Will it play podcasts.
Anonymous
Great but can they now please add an audio/video previewer for Windows Explorer? Hotmail gets it but there’s no preview like app for local files?
Mattbiel
Kip – you posted about a Hotmail problem in January…looks like lots of people are losing the entire contents of their accounts again…will you post something about this to get the word out?
https://www.windowslivehelp.com/thread.aspx?threadid=3606f464-b43f-40c5-a043-f45dc49cad0d&page=1