Windows Live Agents might be a new term for some people, but the idea of them certainly isn't: Windows Live Agents are basically Messenger bots that you have in your contact list. One of the more popular bot creation tools was the Buddyscript from Colloquis, who in October got acquired by Microsoft. And so Windows Live Agents was born, but the SDK was taken offline and kept very much in private, until now.

Angus Logan's blog points people in the direction of a thread on the Windows Live forums of MSDN where Todd Biggs, a Program Manager for WL Agents, announces that for a limited period, people can sign up for the WL Agents' SDK pilot program.

So if you have a great idea for an agent that utilises any of the Windows Live services, I would highly recommend going to the MSDN thread and emailing wla-dev@microsoft.com with the required details.

If you have access to the SDK already, be sure to check out the Team Blog where they have a great post with some training videos as well as a series of posts on the best practices for creating agents.

If you create any agents, please do share them on here as we love seeing the new agents that get created.

SL