Organizing an event? Microsoft is hoping that customers will use its latest free online service, Windows Live Events. This new social events planning service was unveiled Oct. 11 and will be rolled out over the next few days. Windows Live Events is designed to make it easy for users to create personalized event Web sites using a range of customized templates, to which they can add photographs, videos and stories via blog posts after the party is over.
"We have really focused on letting customers relive the event through memories," Windows Live Product Manager Jay Fluegel, in Redmond, Wash., told eWEEK on Oct. 11. This new service has not been beta tested outside of Microsoft, as it is built on the same infrastructure as Windows Live Spaces, which has been around for three years, he said. And as the service is free, there will be "unobtrusive" super-banner ads at the top of the page, but nothing interstitial or any other advertising than that is planned at this point, Fluegel said.