14 DAY TRIAL // The new Messenger officially came out of beta yesterday for over 300 million customers worldwide, announced Jeff Kunins, the Group Program Manager, on the Windows Live blog.
What will make most people happy is that Facebook chat, one of the new features of the beta version of Messenger, is now available to some 30.1 million Messenger customers more, in 7 countries including Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, India, and Turkey.
They will join the 27.8 million other people in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Germany, and Russia, who started using Facebook chat in Messenger since August, after the Messenger beta refresh, and this will double the numbers.
Microsoft officials assure that Facebook chat will be introduced in many more regions, as soon as possible, because the demand is rather strong and rising – over half of all Messenger customers also use Facebook.
The innovation in the new Messenger is that you have all your contacts in one place, regardless of the network they're in (Facebook included).
You can chat with all your friends, see their latest posts and comment on them, and you can also get an always-on “people app” on your PC that tells you instantly when people come online in Facebook or Messenger.
Another very important thing is that you stay in control of who you connect to and share with on Windows Live, and after you connect your Windows Live Messenger account to Facebook, you can choose what types of activities you want to allow, including chat.
Your preferences can be changed according to your needs (and mood) at any time from your profile page and you can choose your features from several places.
If you choose to turn on Facebook chat and updates in Messenger, you can do it even by connecting to Messenger from your Hotmail Inbox or from the Messenger iPhone app.
So, enjoy the new Messenger with Facebook Chat integrated!