I posted yesterday about some of the things we can expect in the next update of Spaces, one of which was Live Contacts. This new service has two aspects to it.

Firstly, it allows a user to publish different information to different groups of people. Personal information can be available only to their Messenger contact list, for example, while business related information could be available publicly.

Secondly, it allows people who subscribe to your information to be automatically informed of any updates you make, be it via your Spaces profile or your Messenger and Mail Beta contact list. It is worth noting that users can view who has subscribed to their Live Contacts information.

Examples: If you move house, rather than telling your friends and family all your new details, you simply update your Live Contacts info and everybody is informed of the update. If you change your extension number at work, you update your Live Contacts info and colleagues will know your new number.

Contact managment is an important part of Windows Live; Live Contacts should help you to see the enormous potential there is for this set of products and why Microsoft was right to split services from content. Excited about Windows Live now? I hope so, its only the beginning!

Update: If you want to setup Live Contacts without creating an MSN Space, you can use the following link. There will be Messenger integration in the near future though :-)