Our friends over on Windows Live Wire just posted some news about Windows Live Hotmail.  Check out the post and see what changes are on the way.  Here’s a peek at the new look:

Have a great weekend,

Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager

After a bit of a break, we're ready to resume our series of on-line meetings for community members! 

You told us one of the things you wanted to hear about most was what's new in Windows Live.  Now that the beta release is out, we've asked Charlotte Jones, a Group Product Manager on the Windows Live team, to give us an overview and demo of what's new in this release. 

We're continuing to use both Windows Live Events and Microsoft Office Live Meeting for these.  You can find out about this event here.  The Windows Live Event invitation will be coming to your e-mail inbox soon.  Please RSVP to that invitation so we know how many people to expect.  RSVP'ing also allows you to post pre-event questions in the discussion board on the event page.

As always, we'll have plenty of time for your questions.  If you want to ask questions over the phone, please dial into the conference call.  Otherwise, please post your questions to the event discussion board, or use the Q&A feature of Live Meeting when the session begins.

We will be recording this event and make it available for on-demand viewing.

Thanks,

- Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager

If you get the Windows Live Newsletter, you’ll notice two more of our community members have been featured this month.  Congratulations to Jeff and Robert on doing great posts that our newsletter editor thought would be wonderful to share with the world.

By the way, do you like the tilt effect on the picture shown here?  That’s just one of the many new features of the latest beta release of Windows Live Writer.  Check it out at http://download.live.com today and then let us know what you think.

- Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager

The latest, greatest versions of many of your favorite Windows Live products are releasing later today!

As members of our community, I wanted all of you to be some of the first to know about some new beta releases available for download in just a few short hours from now.  This is a wide set of Windows Live software including Mail, Messenger, Writer, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Family Safety, Toolbar, and Outlook Connector.  You can download any or all of them at http://download.live.com later today (site not live yet).  You can also read more about them and Chris Jones's blog entry on Windows Live Wire.

Try out them out and then we’d love to hear what you think.  If you want to do some screen cast videos that show everything from installing the beta to what the new products look like after they get installed, that would be really cool and really help others learn more about what’s new.  Then you can post it up on YouTube or Soapbox for the world to see.

So please take a look, and then take some time to blog about your experience (with or without a video).  We can’t wait to read what you write!  Whatever your reactions and feedback, we know everyone else using Windows Live (or thinking about using it) will value your opinions.  After all, you -- the members of the Windows Live community -- are the experts!

We’re going to make this a special Clubhouse Challenge, so don’t forget to tag your posts with Challenge: Beta so you and your post get properly recognized. We hope you like the betas!

- Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager

One of our most active community members, Jeff, left a comment on one of the Clubhouse Space blog posts a while back that struck a chord with me:

"How can we make Windows Live more interactive...The idea could be something along the lines of QnA with immediate responses to questions or entries on our site."

I've been playing around with Live QnA a bit and think this might be something that could increase the interactivity of the Clubhouse.  It's a fairly straightforward idea, and I'm glad Jeff suggested it.

First, you pose a question in QnA, and tag it with clubhouse:

Then, we'll list it among the ten most recently tagged posts here on the Clubhouse Space (using an RSS feed of the tagged questions):

(This is up and running today at the bottom of the left column of this page.)

Finally anyone can click on that question (for example, click here) and either see current answers or provide one of their own.

I think this could be an easy way for us all to interact with each other beyond blog posts and comments.  Eventually, we could even expand it to include RSS feeds of other QnA posts about Windows Live in general or specific Windows Live products/services.  That way we can all see what the world is asking and we can jump in and help people that aren't in our community.

For now, let's at least give it a test for a few weeks.  I'd appreciate your feedback on what you think!

- Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager

If you're like me, you're seeing a lot more views of your Space, and especially of your posts that you've tagged for the Clubhouse.  Jamie had some comments about this in one of my earlier posts about some minor maintenance we were doing on the clubhouse.  He also posted his own blog entry about the traffic increases he was seeing.

So why the big increase?

In a nutshell, your Clubhouse posts are placed in front of millions of people on www.windowslive.com.  If you're on the home page, you'll tend to get more views than other parts of the site.  But when you really see your views skyrocket, it's due to your specific blog post being featured in an advertisement that appears elsewhere on MSN and/or Windows Live.  Here is an example of one that recently appeared on the MSN home page:

As you can see, Jamie's post is at the top of the list.  Many of the other posts come from community members too!

Please keep contributing all those great how-to tips and stories, and we'll do our part to crank up the traffic that views your posts!

- Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager

P.S.  One of the side effects of the increases in these views has been a bit of a slowdown in the performance of both www.windowslive.com and the Clubhouse.  Rest assured, we're working hard to remedy this.

For those of you new to the Clubhouse, this might be your first experience with something our Clubhouse veterans have experienced over the past few months.  To tap into your knowledge, we periodically pose a "Challenge" around a specific topic and encourage all of you to blog about it. 

We've started to do these monthly, but might adjust the schedule from time-to-time.  So as the calendar page flips to September, you'll find a new Challenge up on the main Clubhouse site.  This month, it's all about Windows Live IDs.  Please check it out, write a response, tag it appropriately, and help your fellow community members and other folks interested in Windows Live learn from your expertise!

- Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager

A little over a week ago, many of you took part in a Windows Live community survey about the Clubhouse.   Overall, it looks like most of you are happy with the way the Clubhouse works and would like to see increased activity and more posts from more people.  You've told us that adding more products and more community members will ignite even greater growth and interest in the Clubhouse.

Key Takeaways

• You support Clubhouse growth –- in number of members, amount of participation, and number of products
• You are interested in customized content on the homepage, seeing posts pertaining to products that specifically interest you
• One of the things you like most is keeping up with what other members are saying and doing by reading the latest posts
• Almost everyone is interested in adding a tag cloud for navigation to enhance the overall Clubhouse experience and encouraging more browsing of what community members are posting

One of our favorite survey responses was this member’s quote:

"I really like the Clubhouse just the way it is, but seeing more Members contribute to what is happening there would be what I would like to see added… that is what being a Clubhouse Member should be all about. Having fun and contributing your thoughts to other Members."

We'll incorporate your answers from the survey as we grow and expand the Clubhouse.  Your continued feedback is vital as we create our community, so please keep it coming either via comments on this blog, messages to me, or answers in future surveys.

Thank you!

Marcus, Windows Live Community Manager