From the press release Launch of Windows Live Messenger Marks Significant Progress for Microsoft’s Windows Live Era we learn

Tomorrow (June 20), Microsoft Corp. releases Windows Live Messenger, available at http://get.live.com/messenger/overview, one of the first of more than 20 new Windows Live services to launch globally over the course of the year. Windows Live Messenger goes beyond the traditional instant messaging (IM) service, enabling people to connect and share, with free PC-to-PC calls and inexpensive calls from a PC to phones around the world, video calling, easy sharing with Sharing Folders, and more.

I was waiting for the download to be available before blogging about it but it looks like that didn't stop Microsoft from publishing a press release. :) Although there is a lot of hyperbole in what is essentially an announcement of a rebranded MSN Messenger, there is some good stuff in this release. The feature list on get.live.com has a good run down of the new features, my favorites being the sharing folders and the various voice calling options. The upcoming ability to communicate with your friends on the Yahoo! Messenger network is also cool but not that interesting to me since I don't have any friends who use Yahoo! Messenger. The feature I can't wait to see turned on is social networking integration between Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Spaces. This is would be my first major feature showing up in Windows Live Messenger and one I spent a bunch of time on.

We had a recent reorg on my team, and my day job has transitioned from spending about twice as much time working on the services behind MSN Spaces over Windows Live Messenger to the inverse. This means I'll probably be blogging a bit more about WLM and a instant messaging applications.