LiveSide - News blog : Groups

Reminder: MSN Groups closing on Monday, February 23

Sunshine — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:34:00 GMT

In October we reported that MSN Groups would be closed. The original plan was to close MSN Groups on February 21, but that has been extended to February 23. The team just posted a reminder that you’ll need to migrate your groups to the Multiply service, or save data from those groups locally before Monday, February 23. After that you will no longer be able to access your Group and any of the data in it.

Besides this reminder the team also answers some of the most frequent questions they received about this.

Why are you closing MSN Groups ?

It is our goal to always provide the most current and user-friendly technology to our users, and over the past few years our research and user feedback indicate that MSN Groups fell short of that goal. At the same time, we have been making huge investments in the Windows Live suite of services. In the long term, closing MSN Groups helps us move users to new group experiences that over time will give them more ways to stay in touch with the people they care about. In December we released a brand new service for groups on Windows Live, building it from the ground up to provide great value for our customers.

Since the new Windows Live Groups service was built on a new platform with a different mix of features, we weren’t able to retrofit it to use the data contained in MSN Groups. However, it is very important to us that you can keep the data you’ve created using MSN Groups and can continue to enjoy those experiences. So we have partnered with Multiply to provide you with a way to transfer all of your MSN Groups data and keep your groups going into the future on Multiply.

Why Multiply?

Multiply is an online group and media sharing service that PCWorld recently called one of the ten most underrated tech products. Multiply has worked diligently with us to understand all the ways our customers use MSN Groups, and has prepared its service to receive and host MSN Groups and their data. Multiply prepared a special opt-in migration method that puts group managers in control of moving a group to Multiply and inviting members to rejoin the group in its new location.

Why not allow current MSN Groups to migrate to Windows Live Groups?

Windows Live Groups was built on a new platform with a different mix of features from MSN Groups. The features in Windows Live Groups are optimized for smaller groups of up to 20 people, like clubs or families, whereas MSN Groups caters to a wide variety of group sizes and types, including large public groups. Because the two services differ in their intent and features, they were built using different technologies, and a direct migration from MSN Groups to Windows Live Groups wasn’t possible. Multiply offers a similar set of features to MSN Groups and therefore can more effectively receive all of the MSN Groups data at this time.

You can read the full post here.

MSN Groups

Windows Live update ships: After years of waiting, we create a Group :)

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:56:00 GMT

First, congratulations to our friends at Windows Live for shipping a great looking new set of products today: a new fresh Spaces and Events, Windows Live People, Windows Live Profile, and Photos, along with what’s sure to become our new favorite Windows Live service – Windows Live Groups. You can read more about the releases on The Space Craft, where there are further links to more in depth posts by the Windows Live teams. Be sure to stop by and congratulate them on a job well done.

While we’re excited about all of the new and refreshed services, the truth is we’ve had our hands on pre-release bits for most of these services already, and while we haven’t had a chance to see the new Spaces or Photos until today, they’re not essentially new services. But that doesn’t hold true for Windows Live Groups.

Damaster waxed a bit nostalgic the other day on some old concepts we’d seen floating around, and how they’ve finally come to pass. Among those, called early on “Circles”, if we’ve got our top secret naming right, is what will now and hopefully forever be known as Windows Live Groups. As you may know, LiveSide is an international affair, with writers in Seattle, London and the UK, Florida, Maryland, Georgia, the Netherlands, and Australia, and even Shanghai if you count our “cousin” LiveSino.net. We would be lost without Windows Live Messenger, but to be honest Messenger just doesn’t quite cut it, especially with the time zones we span. We’ve been waiting for Groups for a long time.

So today, for the first time, we created one. Our first experience, after heading to www.groups.live.com, was to create the group itself:

Simple page, looks like a few new themes to choose from, and fortunately we’ve been through all the pain of url renaming, so it’s just www.mygroup.groups.live.com, and likely to stay that way.

We name our group, choose a theme, and we’re off!

Notice the bottom checkbox, it’s important:

If you want to set up group conversations, don’t turn this off, from the looks of it.

We’ve expected all of the functionality here: seamless connection to Messenger, granular membership options, a section for photos and a SkyDrive for files, and a group Calendar. Having it all come together, and with nice touches like a What’s New page for the group, a discussion area, a group email address (mygroup@groups.live.com), and options like the ability to set a group icon, is something close to a dream come true. This is good stuff.

Windows Live Calendar Updated – now supports Group Calendar

damaster — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:16:10 GMT

We mentioned last time that the Groups Calendar was available already on the dogfood server, but you couldn’t really do anything to it as all you get is an error message and nothing is being loaded into the Calendar. Windows Live Calendar was officially updated today (on the public server) and with it comes support for Groups Calendar feature. If you’ve created any Groups in Messenger, you’ll notice when you login to your calendar today that you might have a few extra calendars on your list – they’d correspond to each of the Groups you are part of. Events you add to the Group Calendar will show up on all other members of the Group.

You can also access the new Group Calendar from within Messenger. When you do, you’ll be taken not to your own personal Calendar site, but the actual Group’s Calendar. But don’t worry, Windows Live Calendar conveniently loads all your personal calendars into the page too, so you can actually see if there’s any conflicts between your Group’s and your own schedules. Very neat feature!

You’ll notice that there’s a few difference here. First of all, there’s no option to “Share” the Group Calendar – it’s automatically shared with the rest of your Group already – but it also means you can’t share the Group Calendar with the public or any other persons not in the Group (unless you add them into your Group). There is also a limitation of only one calendar per Group, so you cannot create multiple calendars for the same Group. Also notice that you cannot directly create “social events” (ie. Windows Live Events) from here, it is most likely because for every Event there’s a Group associated with it – so essentially there’s a separate Group Calendar for that. Confusing huh?

Nevertheless this is a very neat update and gives us a peek into the power of Windows Live Groups. Expect more coming real soon!

P.S. With this update there’s also four new themes – Carbon, Graffiti, Wildflowers, and Moonlight. If you were using one of the original themes previously, and accidently changed your theme here, there’s currently no option to change it back (as the “More themes” link currently doesn’t work yet). But don’t worry, these themes are still available once the new Windows Live Home gets rolled out.

Messenger Groups, Where Are They Headed?

Sunshine — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:13:00 GMT

We already told you about Groups in Messenger in our Messenger review, but what are they exactly and where are they headed?

The messengersays live space, explains as follows:

Windows Live Groups are persistent groups that are membership-based. Someone creates a group and invites people they know to it. When you get invited to a group you receive a pop-up in Messenger, similar to when someone adds you as a contact.

You can choose to join the group or decline if you don’t want to receive IMs from the group. When you join a group it appears in your main window inside of a category called “Groups”.

A category called Groups? How come for me when I create a group the category Groups disappears? At my end every Group created forms a category of its own. I say created because due to some bug I can not receive Group Invites! So yea unfortunately I can’t enjoy, nor test, Groups fully :(

Speaking of categories, what are they then? Categories are what was called Groups before in Messenger, or in other words the way you organize your contacts.

When to use Groups? Groups are handy if you want to quickly contact/share stuff with a group of people (max of 20 members per Group for now), think about family, colleagues, club-members etc. Brian made this video showing you how to create a group:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Thank you, Brian. So Groups are persistent multi-person conversations, but is that all? No, there is more to come. As damaster discovered, some group options recently got enabled.

Enabled yes but not everything works yet, what it does do, is give an indication of what is to come. The opening of Windows live Groups surely has to do with it, we expect integration with that. Want to know more about the future of Groups? Why not have a look at what Brian Moudy (PM), who works on Groups, has to say about about it. You can find our interview with him here.

Any thoughts or ideas about Groups? Feel free to post them here, as they said in our interview the team does read LiveSide, or as a comment to the Groups in Windows Live Messenger article on messengersays.

Groups options in Messenger Wave 3 activated – featuring Groups Calendar!

damaster — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:53:00 GMT

Today it seems like Microsoft have flipped the switch and turned on the menu for Windows Live Groups in the new Messenger wave 3 beta! When you right-click on a Groups’ name the following option menu will pop-up:

Previously these options were greyed-out, but today they’re being activated and directs you to the appropriate websites associated with the Group (we’ll talk about Groups more in-depth later). Unfortunately most of these links currently directs you to the 404 “We can’t find that page” page you’d get when you visit any of the beta urls we’ve found previously…with the exception of one – Groups Calendar!

Clicking on Calendar in that menu will direct you to your Groups’ Calendar, as shown below. You can even set the theme for your Group here:

Although it doesn’t seem like it’s connecting yet (notice the “Group name goes here” text on the top), at least it gives us an idea of what’s to come! Oh and did we mention the URL it directs you to also gave away the address of the new dogfood Calendar server? Take a look - it works for your own personal Calendar too! Although it seems to be only 11 days newer than the public release, and the only difference I can see are the “correct” links in the wave 3 header, but hey - you’ll never know when they will give us the next surprise!

MSN Groups to Close: Windows Live Groups to begin Nov. 17

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:23:00 GMT

We’ve been hearing rumors of the closure of MSN Groups and its replacement by Windows Live Groups for years now, last having written about it almost exactly a year ago. Now, however, in an email from Technical Support posted in the MSN Discussion public newsgroup, we have confirmation, and a timeline. In the email, a newsgroup poster who wrote Technical Support to ask for clarification on MSN Groups after an email went out to MSN Groups users in Italy telling them of the coming closure, and got a telling response. In the email, Claudia reveals that MSN Groups is “to close on February 21, 2009”, and that Windows Live Groups will launch on November 17, 2008.

A post on the Community Feedback MSN Group, dedicated to Group managers, requested information as well, and received the following response, which while Geri doesn’t go into the detail that Claudia does, does seem to confirm at least that “change is coming”:

Change is coming

As you may have noticed we've made considerable investments across MSN and Windows Live to enhance your product experience while aligning our online services brands. As we make new product investments, our intention is to offer new products and capabilities while keeping you connected to your online network.

Can you give me specifics?

For now, unfortunately, I cannot give specifics about the new products and updates we have in the works. We will however be communicating updates in the near future so definitely be on the look-out for those.

Any important announcements from Microsoft about MSN Groups will be posted at the MSN Groups homepage (http://groups.msn.com). In the near future, we hope to provide you with more information and establish communication channels through which you can provide feedback.

We appreciate your continued support as we strive to provide you with the highest quality service available. Thank you for using MSN Groups.

Sincerely

Geri

From Claudia's email it appears that MSN Groups users will not be able to migrate directly to Windows Live Groups. Apparently, however, a service, called Multiply, will be offered in order to migrate MSN Groups to Multiply so that they can be preserved after MSN Groups is closed. The Spaces site referenced in the email is restricted access, however a SkyDrive folder on that site contains four documents that relate to Multiply:

(UPDATE: The links were working (making sure to be signed out of all Live IDs) this morning when I posted - so the docs were apparently taken down - didn't bother to grab the files, sorry)

Community Web Folder

MSN Groups Sample Re-Direct Page

Multiple Step-by-Step Migration Guide

Multiple Groups Features

Here’s the email from Claudia that was posted in the MSN Discussion public newsgroup:

Thanks to contact Technical Support Windows MSN Groups, are Claudia, and
with reference to your e-mail, you know that MSN Groups will be closed and
that is why you can have problems.
That message I sent personally it is true then I pray to you and your entire
community to read the information on closing MSN Groups which is located at:
(_http://msngroupsresourcecenter.spaces.live.com).
MSN Groups service to close on February 21 2009. Users can still be used
until that day, but will no longer have the ability to add additional storage
capacity to it.
There was a company with Multiply, a service of Media Group and sharing
online, to create a migration process that moves the service to MSN Groups
(Multiply), so in that way preserve the online community and the history of
the group MSN.
A new service, Windows Live groups, will be launched on November 17 2008.
Customers have 3 options to move his team to a new service:
1. Automatically move your MSN and its data set to Multiply. This option is
free and easy to use: Multiply move the contents of the MSN group and invited
members to return to join his group in this new position.
2. Start from scratch in another department. Customers can start from
scratch and create your group in a different service. However, we recommend
you leave your group will automatically move to Multiply. This will enable
the group to an easy transition, and users can continue to enjoy the
communities that have created.
3. Start from scratch on Windows Live group. To further expand our exchange
and communication services, Windows Live will launch this new service. It is
expected to launch Windows Live groups to the public on November 17, 2008.
Multiply site: _http://multiply.com/msngroupimport% 20% 20.
Thank you for using Windows MSN Groups.
Claudia
Support Windows MSN Groups.

Windows Live Wave 3 beta urls show up

Chris — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:38:11 GMT

A couple of weeks ago we started noticing an interesting referrer popping up in the stats for some of our posts. Turns out Microsoft moved their Wave 3 services from the dogfood servers onto beta servers, and as a result some MSFT employees were clicking through to us from http://home-beta.live.com. You won’t be able to sign in to any of the beta sites yet if you’re not on the approved list (the betas haven’t started yet if you’re worried), but here’s a few gems we learnt while digging around.

Note – as the new sites are locked down, these are just features we’ve spotted/inferred from looking around the existing sites that are running side-by-side. What’s great is that now new features can be tested before being rolled out to the general public, something which Spaces has needed ever since one of its updates rendered the service unusable for several weeks.

Windows Live Home Beta (http://home-beta.live.com) – As mentioned above, softies are clicking through to us from this site, thanks to the new homepage having default groups of feeds that users can subscribe to. Looks like this new homepage could have similar features to my.live.com, so it’ll be interesting to see how much functionality they duplicate.

Windows Live Profile Beta (http://profile-beta.live.com) – Sorry Jason and Sabina but you’re our demos (everybody else had personal photos up). You can see from these feeds that photo albums are now stored on Skydrive. That means you can now use your Skydrive storage across multiple services, which should please a lot of people.

Windows Live Photos Beta (http://photos-beta.live.com) – The front-end user interface to the photos stored on Skydrive, see below. This means you now start to share your 5GB of storage across Windows Live services, which hopefully is a sign of further consolidation in the storage area. Lets face it, we have too much scattered storage already (about 30GB worth!)

Windows Live Skydrive Beta (http://skydrive-beta.live.com) – With photos going to be stored on Skydrive, there’s more privacy options you can set, as shown by the new icon below. This means photos won’t necessarily be visible to the public, giving users some control over content that’s currently lacking in the existing Spaces photo albums.

And for completeness, the urls of the other beta sites:

Windows Live Groups Beta (http://groups-beta.live.com), Windows Live Spaces Beta (http://spaces-beta.live.com) and Windows Live Events Beta (http://events-beta.live.com)

Let us know if you find anything: tips [at] liveside d0t net

More information on Windows Live Wave 3

damaster — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Mary Jo Foley recently reported on her blog that Windows Live Wave 3 have completed the M1 (Milestone 1) stage. Our friend Picturepan2 over at LiveSino was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to interview a manager for Windows Live chatting about the progress of Windows Live Wave 3. Although there were many interesting details that he wasn't allowed to disclose, here's a quick summary of what's currently going on in Microsoft with Windows Live:

New Unified Header - as we've reported previously, all online Windows Live services upon release will have the brand new header that allows users to change the background and colour themes of their pages. This is aimed to reduce the branding confusion that we've had with Windows Live previously.

Windows Live Hotmail - this has recently completed its M2 (Milestone 2) stage. The new version concentrates on extra integration with other Windows Live services such as SkyDrive and Home, as well as a new service People (will this replace Contacts? or perhaps has something to do with the C2 project at Microsoft Research?)
Windows Live Messenger - M1 build is now complete, and is currently in development for the M2 stage. Messenger 9 will feature a new look as well as additional new features (that we're not allowed to disclose yet )
Windows Live Mail - some minor improvements and interface changes in the M1 build. With the recent release of Outlook Connector 12.1 with Windows Live Calendar support, the new Windows Live Mail will also feature Calendar syncing.
Windows Live Photo Gallery - the main new feature in the current M1 build is facial recognition. Photo Gallery will automatically recognise people's faces in your photos, and users will be able to add tags to each person (similar to how Facebook photos works by tagging each person). However, these added people tags will only be viewable in Photo Gallery.

Currently these are the only set of features we are allowed to disclose. There are no mentions of the new Windows Live Movie Maker application nor any details on the new Windows Live People and Windows Live Groups services. But stay tuned as we'll keep you updated with the latest news in the development of Windows Live Wave 3.

Windows Live Wave 3: Groups - More than just a stand-alone service

Chris — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:24:00 GMT

When people have talked so far about Windows Live Groups, the premise has been that it will just be an upgrade to the existing MSN Groups, and something to compete with Facebook. User creates a group, group can then share files, create a blog, interact via online comments etc etc.

However this is somewhat short-sighted. Windows Live, is after all, about the interacting of service, and from what we’ve heard Groups is no exception. In order to fully appreciate where Microsoft is taking its social networking strategy, it helps to look at something that emerged a few years ago, the leaked MSN Wave 11 mockups. While most of what was shown has since been implemented, there is one critical piece that underpins the social networking scenario Microsoft envisioned – Circles.

Circles was an idea about how users could interact with a core group of friends, family, or other acquaintances. To share information with them, to stay in touch with their updates. In fact if Microsoft had launched Circles when it first emerged in public, Facebook et al could have been the ones playing catchup now. As it turned out, Microsoft never got around to launching Circles, until its reincarnation in Windows Live Wave 3, as part of Groups.

So what makes up Groups? Here’s how we see it shaping up:

Groups on Spaces: This is the area that has been talked about already, offering users a shared space on the Windows Live Group service. Key here is the “What’s New Feed” allowing all members of the group to see the updates and changes taking place.

Groups in Messenger: Here is perhaps where Groups will have the most immediate impact. Groups of Messenger contacts, able to keep in contact with one another through Group IM, and exposing access to features offered through other services; What’s New, new photos, shared files, the list goes on. (Wave 11 mockup)

Groups on Skydrive: The logical choice when it comes to sharing files with your friends. This was one of the main components of the Circles mockups, and given the launch of Mesh, it will be interesting to see how much gets implemented in Skydrive.

What makes Groups such an interesting proposition is the benefits offered by Windows Live ID; granular permissions and single sign-on: allowing users to seamlessly switch between identities. Then there are the obvious benefits of using Groups in services such as Calendar and Favorites. Perhaps the most interesting implementations could be via Groups APIs, integrating some of these features into Facebook and other social networks. With the Windows Live Developer platform really starting to take hold, Microsoft needs to use this to kick-start its late entrance to the social networking party.

Update: First sighting of Groups in Messenger has been made.

A new logo for Windows Live Groups?

damaster — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT

A few days ago we found the logo for Live Mesh, today our friends over at LiveSino found a new logo for the long-delayed Windows Live Groups. Here's what it looks like:

It seems like Microsoft has changed the logo since the last time Live Search cached the internal page back in October 2007. For those of you who don't remember, the page looked like this:

Additionally the subdomain http://group.live.com is now active and redirects to http://home.services.spaces.live.com/groups, but currently the page is just the same as the usual Windows Live Spaces homepage. Seems like the launch of Windows Live Groups will be coming real soon.

Getting ready for Windows Live Wave 3

Chris — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:03:01 GMT

With Wave 2 now well behind us, the focus of our writing is now moving onto the next set of Windows Live products - Wave 3. Kip has already talked about how Windows 7 will see a number of programs being removed from the core operating system, notably Photo Gallery, Mail and Movie Maker.

Only the last of these is not yet available as part of the Windows Live Suite, but that should change in the near future as Microsoft readies Windows Live Movie Maker (Codename Sundance). We certainly expect to see upgrades to most if not all of the other Windows Live products currently included in the Suite, as well as the much-rumoured Windows Live Groups. We've even heard that Favourites may be on the receiving end too :)

Then there has been the talk this week of the new Microsoft Value Box (Codename Albany), that makes Microsoft's current software + services approach available to home users from off-the-shelf. Office and Office Live Workspaces will combine with Windows Live OneCare 2.5, though the Windows Live Suite is also rumoured to be making an appearance as a bunclled program too. The only potential downside to this being included is the seemingly inevitable conclusion that Microsoft is going to start charging users for the Windows Live services they currently get for free (which they won't). Lets hope the PR champions are ready to take this challenge on.

And then there is the service that underpins all of the above, Windows Live ID. This appears due for an upgrade to v5.5 in the near future, with the new Delegated Authentication website already using the new version. WL ID has made great improvements in the last few releases, notably with Linked Live IDs and the new developer SDKs - it'll be good to see what else they have up their sleeves.

(To recap, consent.live.com allows users to manage the websites that have access to their information and contacts, and if they so wish, to remove this access. This is particularly relevant in light of the Microsoft + social networks sharing contact information announcement this week.)

Ramping up for Windows Live Events (and maybe Groups too?)

Chris — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:30:00 GMT

Remember the Wave 2 launch dates given last month by Microsoft France? It seems that Windows Live Events could be just around the corner after a link to the service was spotted in a Live Search cached page. What makes this all the more interesting is the cached version of Spaces was running on build 1347, the current build running on spaces.live.com is only 1345.

Our friends over at Wagged have also been a little jumpy recently, conducting searches for Windows Live Events to see what information is already out. It seems like they are definitely ramping up for something over in Redmond.

And while we're on the topic of Spaces, there's also been some chatter on an MSN Groups upgrade to Windows Live Groups. The Wikipedia entry on it is well worth reading, thanks again to Live Search doing a great job in caching the non-public facing Groups homepage. Rock on the Live Search team.