The resource will be opened up to more testers in the coming months

Apr 29, 2010 14:29 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has been hard at work attempting to expand its messaging services beyond the desktop and its own online properties. With projects such as the Messenger Web Toolkit, Windows Live Messenger was made available to third-party developers for integration into their websites, blogs, etc. With the advent of Windows Live Wave 4, Microsoft is taking “Messenger across the Internet” to a whole-new level. The Redmond company announced Messenger Connect, delivering a new way for both partners and developers to connect with Messenger across the web.

“Messenger Connect allows web, Windows and mobile app developers to create compelling social experiences on their websites and apps by providing them with social promotion and distribution via Messenger,” Ori Amiga, principal program manager partner program for Windows Live, revealed.

According to Amiga, Messenger Connect is designed to centralize a few disparate Microsoft efforts. Instead of leveraging resources such as Windows Live ID, Contacts API, Messenger Web Toolkit, etc., separately, developers will now be able to take advantage of a single application programming interface in order to integrate Messenger into their websites. Amiga underlines that the new API is not only based on the company’s own development resources that allowed the IM client to be offered as a part of third-party online experiences, but that it also embraces a number of industry standards and specifications such as OAuth WRAP, ActivityStrea.ms, and PortableContacts.

“We’re in the process of broadening the distribution of our new experiences. Messenger Connect is currently being opened to a small number of leading companies that are helping to provide us with feedback and final revisions. You can look for more news about our new developer portal opening up more broadly in the coming months,” Amiga explained.

Messenger Connect can be leveraged in third-party projects to allow users to communicate through their favorite instant messaging client on websites, but comes with additional benefits for developers. First off, Microsoft has worked to streamline integration as much as possible. At the same time, website owners will be able to easily put together user profiles and social graphs, but also drive engagement for visitors.