As the acting Community Manager for Windows Live I will occasionally share my thoughts on the product, good and not so good. For my first post on this I wanted to start with Spaces, my personal favorite of the Windows Live products.  I love the What's New feed. You see this as your Spaces homepage when you are signed in to your account. I think the product team has done a great job of making this a complete snapshot of what's happening in your network. It looks like this;

I can see what my contacts have recently done on their Spaces page, as well I can invite friends my contacts have become friends with. You see this feature on the third topic down on the screen shot where it says Community Manager is now friends with.... then there is a link that says "Invite as a friend". Clicking on this link automatically sends a friend invite to that person. That person then gets an invite to approve on their Space. As an example, we had a new team member join recently and I didn't know her Spaces URL. Since someone else on the team had added her as a friend it showed up on my What's New feed and I was able to invite her as a friend without knowing her Spaces URL.

It also works the other way to notify my peeps when I've added a blog post, photo or friend. I never go to people's Spaces URL, I rely on my What's New feed to tell me.. well... what's new.

Gen Y are the children of the baby boomers. They are the largest group of consumers on the planet and that makes them very interesting to marketers pushing products. The really fascinating thing about this group is that everything about them is game changing. Full report here. The highlights look like this;

• They are connected ALL the time (cell phone, ipod, PS3). What does that mean for marketers? They don't see or hear your messages.
• They consult their friends and parents for buying decisions so your ads don't matter
• They are closer to their parents then any other
• They are more interested in lifestyle when choosing a job and aren't as motivated by money.
• They expect their web tools to connect them at work as well as home. Gen Y connect with their friends all the time all day via instant messenger and social media sites. Companies that don't use Web 2.0 technologies will be left behind.
• They expect transparency with brands they love
• Good news; they are forgiving. Make a mistake, own up to it and they will give you a pass.
• Good news; they are socially conscious. They will demand the same from employers and brands they do business with

I find this group of consumers fascinating. I'm a Gen X'er. My generation is vastly different from this group. I don't remember ever consulting my parents for opinions before I buy.  But make no mistake, this very large group of consumers will change the way marketing is done. Since kids and parents are so tightly connected marketers will have to figure out how to appeal to both groups of consumers.

eMarketer came out with a very interesting report today that shows some staggering growth for online communities. It reports almost 50% of all Internet users participate in some form of online community. Hobby-oriented and Social communities are the most popular. The community I launched this week would be considered a hobby-oriented community because people are sharing about things they like to do in their free time, photo sharing, blogging, movie making. I also agree that as the social graph continues to evolve websites will get smarter about aggregating people's content. I should be able to have one place where I keep my profile data and I should be able to automatically input that data into any community I want to participate in. I don't want to upload new photos and write new favorite things list every time I join a new online community. But if I'm participating in a professional community I would have a different profile than if I was participating in my fashionista community so I want the option to change profiles. But either way I should be given the change to use my existing profile data from my blog, Facebook page, or whatever.  The back-end support for the Window Live community that will be live in July is an aggregation model that pulls existing data from people's Spaces profile page. If they ever want to update their profile data they go to one place and the data syncs across all the different properties they have chosen to participate in.

Today I'm really excited to announce the community program I have been working on for the better part of ten months is taking it's first baby steps. As I've mentioned many times on this blog I am a true believer in the power of the community, the voice of the customer. Communities have been around for centuries in many different forms. And today with the tools available on the Internet it's become easier than ever to bring together people who share common interests, goals and passions.

What first started me on this road to build a Windows Live community was last summer when I was focused on Spaces. I was constantly amazed at the creative and innovative ways people were using Spaces to build businesses, connect with family, share family photos and babies first steps. Many of these Spaces are hugely personal websites where people share the most important part of their lives with the people they care about the most. It occurred to me that the Spaces customers were the ones who knew Spaces the best and the experience they had would benefit other people who may want to do the same things but maybe don't know how.

Today I've asked a small group of Windows Live customers if they would like to share their experiences and expertise with the larger Windows Live community. My hope is people will learn from each other and find inspiration from the community. I believe our customers are our best advocates as well as the best way for me to learn what we are doing right and things we can do better. My role will be primarily as an enabler letting the conversations flow between consumers. I look forward to working with them honestly and openly. In the coming months as we get things up and running look for more information.  As well I'll share learning's along the way. It should be an interesting and exciting ride.