We have a very committed group of users at eBuddy who help translate our homepage and Messengers into languages from all over the world! For example, did you know you can set eBuddy to speak Icelandic, Dutch or Brazilian Portuguese? Simply go to the settings and select the language you want eBuddy to speak.

Every time we develop a new version, the translators quickly translate it to their native language which allows us to offer eBuddy in as many languages as possible. So a big thanks to all the translators for helping us out!!

We really want to stress that this is just the first version. It doesn't have every feature that you would look for in a full blown desktop IM application, but we thought it would be best to release it as soon
as possible, and let your suggestions guide future development.

After earlier deals with Verizon and Net2Phone, and then completely pulling outbound PSTN calling earlier this year, Microsoft has teamed up with Telefonica, the largest telecom provider in Latin America, to reinstate the Make a Phone Call feature in Windows Live Messenger. Telefonica's Voype service allows Messenger users in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, the United States and Venezuela to make calls directly from their client to landlines and cell phones around the world at a reasonable price.

And now we have added this network to eBuddy, so you can also chat with your friends on eBuddy via ICQ! Besides the addition of the ICQ network we have also improved our Yahoo! connectivity and fixed a lot of minor issues.

To chat with your Facebook friends download the latest version of the eBuddy Mobile Messenger to your phone at get.ebuddy.com, or just browse to m.ebuddy.com on your phone for the eBuddy Lite Messenger.

• Speed: The coming soon page says that for broadband users, the new Hotmail will be up to 70% faster on sign in (50% for non-broadband users). That's a pretty big claim, and one which should provide for some interesting testing once the beta is open to the public.
• Ever-increasing storage: Microsoft have carefully avoided using the phrase "unlimited storage", as Yahoo has done, but in a sense this is what is being offered. The figures we last heard for this were the the existing 5GB free accounts would be getting growth of 250MB per month, but this is pre-beta and could have changed and so our usual disclaimer applies. Obviously the PR definitely looks better leaving the figures out, but a free inbox of 8GB by the end of year 1 gives us a warm feeling. (For comparison, Gmail is currently on 7GB and still growing.)
• New UI: Along with the new Wave 3 UI, in particular the new header and themes available shown below, the new promotion site suggests that the classic and full versions of Hotmail will be combined together. This potentially means that full functionality could be available across all browsers. Also worth mentioning here are improvements around dealing with spam.
• WebIM built-in: This feature doesn't really need much explaining and should be a popular addition. From what we've heard it'll support most of the basic needs such as presence, notifications and chat via the WebMessenger dogfood. Yes its been a while since we've spoken about that!
• Integrated Calendar: No surprise if you're on the new Windows Live Calendar beta to hear there will be integration between the two services.
• Easier to send group emails: Thanks to the new Windows Live Groups service (go ABCH!) it'll be easier to email all those contacts in one go.

• Sorted contact collections: New OnlineContacts and OfflineContacts collections list contacts in sorted order to make it easier for applications to show sorted contact lists.
• Contact display picture links: Contact display picture links are now returned but with respect user privacy, there is some special handling required to use them in applications.
• Customization for the Sign-In Control: color schemes can now be defined for the Sign-In Control.
• A new URL for loading the library: Library files are now content distributed globally; applications should see improved library load time.
• Hosted static images for status icons and Messenger logos: GIF and PNG static images for applications to use for displaying user status are now being hosted.
• URL strings for Messenger resources: The library returns a set of market-specific URLs for applications to display links to required Microsoft pages such as the privacy statement. This is to enable applications to move the Sign-In Control out of view when it is not needed.
• Sign-In Control returns extended authentication results: The Sign-in Control has been updated to return more detailed information about user authentication results.