Microsoft has previewed its Windows Live Messenger, the first of the upcoming new suite of Windows Live communications and sharing services to be revealed. The new Messenger is still being tested within Microsoft and will be released in the coming months.

Over 320M customers worldwide use Windows Live Messenger every month sending 10 billion messages every day, and these included several thousand Maltese users.

Microsoft said the new features include high-definition video chat providing full screen, high-definition video chat; integration of Bing search results making it easier to add photos and videos from across the web without having to leave the conversation window; Messenger Connect allowing any website to integrate Messenger so you can chat and share with your Messenger friends; Social Highlights designed around those "favourite" people and making their social updates gain prominence; single contact list which avoids de-duplication of contacts; synchronised status updates so that posted updates in Messenger are automatically synchronised with your status on other networks and vice versa; and Messenger for popular smartphones such as for Windows Phone, iPhone, and other top smartphones giving you access to all your contacts while you're on the go.

Messenger will pull together updates from social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn allowing friends to share, comment, and send messages across these networks all from within Messenger.

Messenger also brings in updates from other websites your friends are using (even if you're not) by letting your friends connect them into Messenger. So you can get updates from places like Flickr, Zune, YouTube, and others all within Messenger.

When the new Messenger is released in the coming months, it will be available for download at http://download.live.com .

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