The new Messenger officially came out of beta today for over 300 million customers worldwide. We’re excited to announce that Facebook chat, one of the new features that made the Messenger beta so popular, is now available to 30.1 million Messenger customers in 7 additional countries: Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, India, and Turkey. This doubles the number of customers who can now use Facebook chat in Messenger. These customers join 27.8 million others from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Germany, and Russia, who have been able to use Facebook chat in Messenger since the Messenger beta refresh back in August. We’ll continue to introduce Facebook chat to more regions over time, as quickly as we can.
More than half of all Messenger customers also use Facebook. With the previous beta, you got a rich social view that brought together all your updates (including those from Facebook), and one place to see and comment on them. With Facebook chat integration in Messenger, you now also have one place to chat with all your friends. By connecting Facebook with Messenger, you get an always-on “people app” on your PC that gives you instant access and notifications as people come online in Facebook or Messenger.
As always, you’re in control of who you connect and share with on Windows Live. If you choose to connect your Windows Live Messenger account to Facebook, you can then choose what types of activities you want to allow, including chat. And of course, you can change your preferences at any time from your profile page.
If you do choose to turn on Facebook chat and updates in Messenger, those features are also available to you from other places you connect to Messenger, like from your Hotmail inbox, or from the Messenger iPhone app.
Download the new Messenger as part of Windows Live Essentials 2011 today.
We hope more of you will enjoy this deeper integration with Facebook, and we look forward to partnering with more leading services across the internet.
Jeff Kunins
Group Program Manager, Windows Live
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