Microsoft releases new Windows Live IM service

[engine]

Microsoft Corp. launched on Monday its newly branded instant messaging system, Windows Live Messenger, the first major release in a wave of online services Microsoft plans to offer to grab a larger share of Web advertising revenue.

Windows Live Messenger builds on top of Microsoft's MSN Messenger -- used by 240 million people worldwide -- and offers free PC-to-PC calls, inexpensive calls to ordinary phones from the PC and video conferencing using Web cameras.

Microsoft releases new Windows Live IM service [today.reuters.com]

[iJeep]

This has been available for download for a while.

It's basically the same thing, just a big ad block at the bottom of the window.

[trillianjedi]

Another nail in the coffin for Vonage Holdings?

This is hot on the heels of a recent Yahoo! announcement.

Yahoo, a partner of BT in Britain, announced a set of new set of plug-ins for Yahoo Messenger, a version of which is branded BT Communicator

The plug-ins include a blog viewer, Ebay and Amazon access, and a free radio station that can deliver music of your stated preference. A software kit allows developers to create their own plug-ins.

Other new features include sound effects and the ability to transfer files of up to 1GB

[computeractive.co.uk...]

Microsoft and Yahoo! are going head to head on this one.

[bill]

So, has anyone here tried this new service? Is it an improvement over the old MSN Messenger?