Windows Live Hotmail Tops 1 Billion Active Views

Active Views is a feature Windows Live Hotmail designed to give an entirely new dimension to user emails.

Essentially, Active Views streamlines the integration of dynamic and interactive content within messages, allowing users to get access to a range of content right in their inbox.

The need for such a feature is obvious especially when it comes down to facilitating the way in which users share content.

I don’t know about you, by just earlier today I emailed some of my friends links to a hilarious email video I came across.

With Active Views it means that they don’t need to click a link and visit YouTube in order to view the video, since the content is available right there in the message.

As soon as Active Views was introduced into Windows Live Hotmail, it featured support from sites like YouTube, Hulu, Flickr, FedEx, etc.

“For those messages, we fetch the important content from other websites and let you engage with it in an Active View that appears at the top of the message. This lets us take an email with a text URL for a shared video, and instead of just showing dull text, let you watch the video without having to leave your inbox,” revealed Dick Craddock, Group Program Manager, Hotmail.

“In traditional email with just a text link, the percentage of people clicking through is less than 10%. With Active Views, customers are clicking on the video control in about 25% of all email messages with a video. In fact, we’ve served over one billion Active Views for photos, videos, documents, and shipping notifications.”

But 1 billion Active Views served to Windows Live Hotmail users represents yet another milestone for the software giant.

Microsoft is expanding the dynamic and interactive experience of Hotmail messages beyond common attachments and links. In this regard, the next step for the Redmond company involves: invitations, updates, ratings, and deals.

“More and more services use email to let their members or customers know when something has happened, and most of these messages have a simple response – accept the invitation, comment on the photo, rate the movie,” Craddock added.

“Now those actions happen right in your inbox, saving clicks and time, thanks to the work of partners like LinkedIn, Posterous, LivingSocial, and Netflix.”