 | |
 A customizable homepage | |
| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Initial release | November 2005 |
| Stable release | Final / August 8, 2008 |
| Type | Portal, Homepage |
| Website | Archived official website at the Wayback Machine (archive index) |
Windows Live Personalized Experience (also known as My.Live.com, previously Live.com) was a customizable portal launched by Microsoft in early November 2005. It was one of the first Windows Live services to launch.
Live.com lets users add RSS feeds in order to view news at a glance. Building off Microsoft's Start.com experimental page, Live.com could be customized with Gadgets, mini-applications that could serve almost any purpose (e.g. mail readers, weather reports, slide shows, search, games, etc.). Some gadgets integrated with other Windows Live services, including Hotmail, Live Search, and Favorites.
Users could create multiple site tabs and customize each with different feeds, gadgets, layouts, and color schemes, thus making it a competitor to iGoogle and Pageflakes among others.
On December 14, 2004, Start.com, the predecessor to Live.com, began internal testing. On February 5, 2005, the first version, http://www.start.com/1, went live. On March 10, http://www.start.com/2 went live, and on June 3, http://www.start.com/3 went live. On September 1, they released to http://www.start.com/. On September 13, developer sites went live.
The Live.com domain was previously owned by Live Networks Inc., a producer of streaming network software. [1] Microsoft's Live.com launched on November 1, 2005 with the Windows Live brand and various improvements. . By November 8 they had added Firefox support. On November 23 themes were added. On December 15, support for Opera 9, new gadgets, and other improvements went live. On December 20, the search engine was improved. January 27, 2006 saw support for images in RSS feeds. On February 28, the search box was updated. On March 7, Live.com was updated with a new look, more gadgets, and an improved interface. It also featured, for the first time, the new Windows Live Search (now Bing). Features included intelligent scrolling, dynamic image search, and saved searches. On March 30, other improvements were made, especially regarding the first run experience and persistence of search-only mode.
On September 12, 2006, Live.com officially came out of beta, and a beta version of Live.com Mobile was also released for mobile devices. In the following few days, MSN Search began redirecting to the new Windows Live Search, and the rollout was complete. [2]
On August 3, 2007, Microsoft Japan revealed details for Windows Live 2.0 in its annual Business Strategic Meeting 2008, including a new version of Windows Live homepage. A new Windows Live portal, branded Windows Live Home, was expected to be released in Fall 2007, featuring a new interface design together with Windows Live ID improvements. [3] Microsoft later confirmed that Windows Live Home is not a replacement for Live.com. On November 21, 2007, the Live.com team announced on their blog a new version of Live.com is in the works. [4]
Because all online Windows Live services are located in subdomains of Live.com, the site was once the recognized home of Microsoft's "Live" movement. However, on April 17, 2008, Live.com was officially relocated to my.live.com with its name now referred to as Windows Live Personalized Experience. Live.com became the home to Live Search as part of Microsoft's movement to push their online search and advertising services. Windows Live Home became the official home portal for all Windows Live services instead. Windows Live Personalized Experience was updated on August 8, 2008 featuring the new Windows Live 2.0 theme.
When Bing launched in June 2009, Live.com started to redirect to Bing.com; Windows Live Personalized Experience was still accessible at the my.live.com address. It was announced in mid-January 2010 that Windows Live Personalized Experience would be discontinued as of March 30, 2010, while users are encouraged to use My MSN as a replacement service. [5] In April 2010, my.live.com started redirecting to My MSN, and Live.com started redirecting to Windows Live Home.
MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, the same release date as Windows 95.
Microsoft MapPoint is a discontinued software program and service created by Microsoft that allows users to view, edit and integrate maps. The software and technology are designed to facilitate the geographical visualization and analysis of either included data or custom data. Numerous acquisitions have supplemented both data and feature integration.
AOL Explorer, previously known as AOL Browser, is a discontinued graphical web browser based on the Microsoft Trident layout engine and was released by AOL. In July 2005, AOL launched AOL Explorer as a free download and as an optional download with AIM version 5.9. AOL Explorer supported tabbed browsing.
Windows Live is a discontinued brand-name for a set of web services and software products from Microsoft as part of its software plus services platform. Chief components under the brand name included web services, several computer programs that interact with the services, and specialized web services for mobile devices.
Bing Maps is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps for Enterprise framework.
Microsoft Gadgets are lightweight single-purpose applications, or software widgets, that can sit on a Microsoft Windows user's computer desktop, or are hosted on a web page. According to Microsoft, it will be possible for the different types of gadgets to run on different environments without modification, but this is currently not the case.
Compared with previous versions of Microsoft Windows, new features of Windows Vista are numerous, covering most aspects of the operating system. They include new technical features, new aspects of security and safety, new networking features, new I/O technologies, and additional management features.
Bing is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service has its origins in Microsoft's previous search engines: MSN Search, Windows Live Search and later Live Search. Bing provides a variety of search services, including web, video, image and map search products. It is developed using ASP.NET.
Windows Live Toolbar was a browser extension toolbar for Internet Explorer. It superseded MSN Search Toolbar. Windows Live Toolbar provided a simple search interface that starts to list results as the user types in a search query, and uses Bing as its search engine. The toolbar also allows users to synchronize their Internet Explorer favorites across multiple computers, and provides an interface to Windows Live and MSN services.
Windows Live Spaces was Microsoft's blogging and social networking platform. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking sites, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of community services away from the MSN brand. Windows Live Spaces received an estimated 27 million (27,000,000) unique visitors per month as of August 2007. Despite being considered a useful messaging and communication tool, Windows Live Spaces has been criticized as not being as powerful as some of its alternatives. It was shut down in 2011 due to low viewership.
Bing for mobile is a search tool for handheld mobile devices from Microsoft as part of their Bing search engine. It is designed for mobile device displays. Bing Mobile is built into Windows Mobile and Windows Phone as proprietary software, accessed via the Search key on Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 devices. It is also available on Windows Phone 8.1, and can be downloaded for other platforms, including iOS and Android.
Microsoft engineering groups are the operating divisions of Microsoft. Starting in April 2002, Microsoft organised itself into seven groups, each an independent financial entity. In September 2005, Microsoft announced a reorganization of its then seven groups into three. In July 2013, Microsoft announced another reorganization into five engineering groups and six corporate affairs groups. A year later, in June 2015, Microsoft reformed into three engineering groups. In September 2016, a new group was created to focus on artificial intelligence and research. On March 29, 2018 a new structure merged all of these into three.
Bing Shopping is a products search and discovery service that helps save time by bringing products from multiple sellers together on a single website. It uses the power of Bing to show product results–including photos and product details. Products can be filtered and prices compared. Purchases are completed on the seller's website.
Windows Live Home was a web portal launched by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live services. It aimed to bring many of the Windows Live services together in one place, by providing a central location to access Windows Live services and monitor status information.
Outlook.com is a personal information manager web app from Microsoft consisting of webmail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith as Hotmail, Outlook was acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million and relaunched as MSN Hotmail, later rebranded to Windows Live Hotmail as part of the Windows Live suite of products. Microsoft phased out Hotmail in October 2011, relaunching the service as Outlook.com in 2012.
Windows Search, formerly known as Windows Desktop Search on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, is a system-wide desktop search feature of Microsoft Windows.
MSN Messenger, later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service while also having compatibility with Yahoo! Messenger and Facebook Messenger. The client was first released as MSN Messenger Service on July 22, 1999, and was marketed under the MSN branding until 2005 when it was rebranded under Windows Live. It has since been officially known by its second name, although its first name was still used colloquially by most of its users. In June 2009, Microsoft reported the service attracted over 330 million active users each month, placing Messenger among the most widely used instant messaging clients in the world.
MSN China was a joint venture of the global software corporation Microsoft, part of its MSN service, located in the People's Republic of China. Unlike most other international versions of the MSN portal, which have used the same layout as the United States since 2014, MSN China utilized a unique design and had a separate editorial division.
Microsoft Mobile Services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices, they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone, Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Nokia platforms, BREW, and Java ME. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.
Microsoft News is a news aggregator and service that features news headlines and articles chosen by editors. The app includes sections for top stories, U.S., world, politics, money, technology, entertainment, opinion, sports, and crime, along with other miscellaneous stories. It allows users to set their own favorite topics and sources, receive notifications of breaking news though alerts, filter preferred news sources, and alter font sizes to make articles easier to read.
| Web services |  | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer services | |||
| Discontinued |
| ||