This year marks the 10th anniversary of Windows Live Messenger, since it started its humble beginnings as MSN Messenger Service back in 1999. Since then the program has gained 330 million active users from all around the world, while delivering many features to make it one of the leading IM clients of today. To celebrate Microsoft is giving users free content packs, starting competitions and generating a general buzz all about Windows Live Messenger. Below is a round up of the story thus far.

• MessengerSays blog posts: The Messenger developer team's blog has attempted to generate stories about user's experiences with Messenger over the past decade. Here is a summary of their posts:
  • Share your favorite personal Windows Live Messenger story with the world! (15/06/2009)
  • The Countdown to the Windows Live Messenger 10th Anniversary begins (24/06/2009)
  • Do you know one of these Messenger-etiquette offenders? How do YOU deal with them? (02/07/2009)
  • Proposing via your Windows Live Messenger status message – The key to success! (07/07/2009)


• Competitions & prizes: I'm not entirely sure if this will be only applicable to the UK, but there appears to be a chance to win vouches at Play.com and download free content packs for Messenger itself. The page features a timeline of what's being going on in history throughout 10 years of Messenger. Check out 2006, where you can see one of our Messenger screenshots has been lifted onto the website!

Of course with it being early July we can expect a lot more things to come to light surrounding Messenger's "aluminum" anniversary this month. Hopefully the competitions will expand to other countries and the first details about Windows Live Messenger 2010 will start to surface. In the meantime keep subscribed to the MessengerSays blog as this has been their most active period for years.