LiveSide - News blog

First off, who are you all and what do you do?

Gail Giacobbe – Lead Program Manager for Windows Live Mail desktop

Cory Toedebusch – Product Manager for Windows Live Mail desktop

Tanja Fournier – Customer Connection Program Manager

 
What's new in this release?

We worked hard to both refine the current features and add new ones in reaction to user feedback.  In light of that, we’ve fixed over 1,000 known issues, added Blog button to easily post emails to your Windows Live Space, improved our virus scanning capabilities, added some personalization features like folder colors, enabled Photo mail in POP accounts, built-in contact merge capabilities to catch duplicate import of contacts, enabled Automatic Update so users can be sure they have the latest build, and made some performance improvements.  We believe users will have an improved experience over our last build.

 
The new build contains a "Blog to Spaces" button.  Will this simply take you to your space or load Windows Live Writer if you have it installed?

Blog to Spaces loads the email contents into the Windows Live Spaces blog editor.  It does not load Windows Live Writer.  

Currently, in Messenger, the Mail button forces WLMD to open.  Will you be able to configure this differently?

This is a great suggestion!  At this time, there is no way to configure this differently, but feel free to send feature suggestions like this to the WLMd team through our link on http://feedback.live.com.  We are always interested in hearing what our customers have to say.

Is Active Search different to Google's approach with AdSense in Gmail?  If so, how?

Active Search is different from Google’s approach with Adsense. Active Search was conceived from the start as more than an advertising medium. The goal was to bridge the two foremost activities on the internet – email and the web in a way that is controlled by the user and respects their privacy. Active Search brings you the content on the web based on content in your email, effortlessly. We make it really easy to consume this content and to find out more information about interesting content in your email.

1.       Search based on our suggestions: just click on any of the extracted keywords (transparently displayed and hyperlinked) to change the search results (and ads)

2.       Issue your own searches: scratch that itch without leaving your mail client. If you need to see more information, ‘more results’ takes you there fast in a full browser window.

3.       User choice: customers can opt out of Active Search at any time.

We’ve tried hard to put the user at the center of the Active Search experience in a way that Google has not found necessary to do.

How will end users know that their privacy is not being compromised when Active Search scans for keywords in their emails?

We’re very sensitive to any user trust issues in the development of our products. In the case of Active Search we have built in protections for our customers:

1.       Attachments are not scanned at all. Neither are email headers.

2.       We do not extract numeric data that can be used to identify you, like social security #s.

3.       We do not store or record extracted keywords, we simply issue searches based on them through a standard API

4.       No personally identifiable information from your login to WLMD is shared as part of Active Search operation.

5.      When you turn Active Search OFF based on your user choice, it’s truly off. No extraction is done anymore.

Understanding that users deserved validation of these statements, we engaged an external auditor (Jefferson Wells) to verify the claims. You can find their audit report here: http://www.jeffersonwells.com/Client_Audit_Reports/ActiveSearch_Privacy_Assessment.pdf

 Will WL Mail Desktop be getting a Today page like its online counterpart?

We are always looking at ways to improve the customer experience; however, there are currently no immediate plans to add a Today page to Windows Live Mail desktop.

 Now that everyone can access their Hotmail or Windows Live Mail account on their computer, what's the benefit for Premium subscribers beyond no ads?  Hotmail Plus does the same thing for a fraction of the price.

WLMd is focused on offering email and communication services.  MSN Premium offers a host of additional features beyond email, including MSN Encarta Plus, MSN Money Plus, Firewall and Virus Guard, MSN Member Center, and dedicated technical support.  For a full list of features and descriptions, please go to the MSN Premium page here.

 
Here's the question of the day: Is it WLMD or WLMC?  We have heard that the real name of Windows Live Mail Desktop is Windows Live Mail Center.  In the past, your team has sort of backed down from actually commenting on the name change.  What will the name be?  Just for a point of reference, the fact that the actual download link is http://g.live.com/1rebeta/WLMC_EN

This is the million dollar question!   The product name is Windows Live Mail desktop.

So, the naming debate has been settled for good.  The official name is Windows Live Mail desktop with a lowercase "d".  I hope that you enjoyed getting a little look into Microsoft's take on this release in the interview. 

Also, if you have any suggestions or requests for interviews that you would like to hear or read, feel free to drop us a note at our Feedback email.  We are always looking for feedback on how we can improve our audio and text interviews to make them more interesting for you, so don't be hesitant, let us know what you think!