Windows Live Photo Gallery beta
The first new service, Windows Live Photo Gallery beta, is essentially an upgraded version of the Windows Photo Gallery that is built into Windows Vista, though it will also work on Windows XP machines. The service expands upon the photo management program by allowing people to upload their photos to a Windows Live Spaces blog.
Microsoft’s second new service, tentatively dubbed Windows Live Folders, is essentially an online-storage tool that people can use to back up files, share them with friends or post them publicly. In the current beta program, testers are being given 500 megabytes of online storage. Though they can share files with anyone they wish, people who are invited to use a shared folder have to sign up for a Windows Live ID for authentication, said Brian Hall, general manager of the Windows Live business group.
The moves represent the first in a wave of new services that will roll out in the coming months, Hall said. While Microsoft has spent the past few months winnowing its list of services and updating its mainstay Hotmail, it is now looking to add new services and bring tighter integration of its differing products.
“This is the second generation” of Windows Live, said Hall.
Microsoft announced its Windows Live effort in November 2005 in what was seen as a response to free, Web-based services from Google and others.
In both photo sharing and online storage, Microsoft is catching up to rivals. Yahoo’s Flickr photo-sharing site is one of the most popular on the Web, and Yahoo Briefcase has been around for several years, for example.
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