Ever since Windows Live was announced in November 2005 a new version of Microsoft's official web messenger for MSN/Windows Live Messenger has been expected.

The first release of Windows Live Messenger came around in June 2006 but Windows Live Web Messenger was nowhere to be seen. Now, nearly a year later, there has still been no sign of it and people continue to struggle with the outdated, slow and featureless MSN Web Messenger.

Rival instant messaging networks such as Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk have released their own fresh web messengers fairly recently and even third-parties such as eBuddy have taken advantage of the lack of progress from Microsoft and released very good web messengers that support Windows Live Messenger.

It is known that Windows Live Web Messenger is in development, but how much longer will it be?

Well, earlier this year LiveSide said that Microsoft's "next generation web messenger" will be around "this summer" (whether it will be in the form of a private or public beta or even the final release has yet to be discovered), and earlier this week Microsoft commented that "Changes are coming in a future release" in response to a suggestion to improve MSN Web Messenger on the private Windows Live beta Connect site.

So will Windows Live Web Messenger finally make an appearance this summer? It seems increasingly likely but all we can do is wait and see.

>> View our list of existing web messengers