I posted some mapping tips and tricks on our team blog, The Space Craft, for those of you who have tried or are thinking about trying Windows Live Events.

Map that event!

Raise your hand if you’re directionally challenged like me!  Ask Mike – he’s been a witness to my ineptitude since well before our days at Microsoft.  I’m useless without printed directions from Live Search Maps or Live Search for Windows Mobile phones.  Therefore, I feel the need to highlight some of the ways the Maps team and Windows Live Events are going to save my butt:

 

• Help guests pinpoint your house
• Find a local place to have a party
• Print driving directions or send them to your phone

Jay
Product Manager, Windows Live Events

* Right now, the Live Search Maps features described in this post are available in English-speaking markets only

Help guests pinpoint your house

If you’re organizing an event and you know ahead of time where it’s going to be held, it’s really easy to add a map to the event website for your guests:

 

• Go to the Create Event page for a new event or the Event details page for an existing event.
• In the Location name field, type a friendly name for the location like “Our house” or “Algonquin Park.”
• Type the known address into the Address field.
• Click Add map and check out the map to your event from Live Search Maps.

That alone should be useful, but have you ever noticed that when you use popular mapping services, they don’t necessarily put the pushpin on the right house on your street?  Forget it if you’re on a cul de sac.  That’s because mapping services tend to make a best guess where to put the pushpin based on the number of your house as it relates to which block the house is on.  For example, if I live on 750 Main Street, mapping services guess that my house is directly centered within the 700-800 block and show the pushpin there.   Basically, they incorrectly assume that houses are a fixed distance apart.   This discrepancy is often annoying when you follow directions turn for turn and then still spend time circling the neighborhood trying to locate the actual house.  A small but useful feature we added to the maps in Events is the ability to pick up an incorrectly-placed pushpin and place it directly on your house so guests can find you.

 

• Click on the pushpin icon in the lower left-hand corner of the map.
• Move the pushpin to the correct house by clicking on the house.
• Click the cursor (arrow) icon in the lower left-hand corner to get out of pushpin mode.

Find a local place to have a party

Sometimes you know what type of place you want to have a party, but you don’t know the exact place.  For example, you want to have your kid’s birthday party at a pizzeria, but which one?  Or, you want to find a nice park.  We (actually, Live Search Maps) can help.  Let’s use the pizza example:

 

• Go to the Create Event page for a new event or the Event details page for an existing event.
• In the Location name field, type the category of venue you’re looking for like “pizza.”
• Type the city and state into the Address field.
• Click Add map and check out the list of pizzerias that is displayed.
• Click the pizzeria where you want the party to be held.

The address and map are automatically added to your event!

Print driving directions or send them to your phone

Once you add a map to an event, we add two links to get a larger map, driving directions, and have access to more slick mapping features all on http://maps.live.com.  For example, you can take driving directions with you on the go by:

 

• Click Get driving directions below the map to go to the Live Search Maps site in a new window.
• Type in your starting address.   The ending address will be filled in with the event location.
• Choose Shortest time or Shortest distance for the route option.  Additionally, you can even have the service Choose route based on traffic!
• Click Get directions.
• Click the printer icon to bring up a printer-friendly map and directions.

OR

Click Send to mobile, type in the number of a phone that receives text messages and has a web browser, and click Send to have a clickable directions link sent to your phone. 

 

Technorati tags: Windows Live Events, Windows Live, Live Maps, Microsoft, Events

Check out the Space Craft for more information about the team's release tonight of a free social event planning service and some useful new Spaces features.  Here's the Events excerpt:

Easily create a great-looking website for your next event To offer you more ways to connect and share memories with the people you care about most, the team that brought you Spaces would love to hear your feedback on Windows Live Events, our new, free social event planning service.  With Events you can easily: Plan that next baby shower, birthday party, or family reunion Create a great-looking event invitation and website using one of over 100 fantastic templates Invite anyone with an e-mail address and track who’s coming Make your event unique with familiar customization features - choosing a friendly web address (like http://kates1stbirthday.events.live.com), using custom colors, fonts, and background images, or adding modules and Windows Live web gadgets Let guests and organizers share photos and stories before and after the event Click on Events from the new navigation and then click Create event to get started!
Share photos and stories after the party’s over Ever notice that your guests take more and better pictures at your parties than you do because you’re focused on everyone having a good time?   And, if you remember to even ask, there is a mad scramble afterwards to try to collect everyone’s photos over e-mail.  Well, we want to make that A LOT easier with features like: Photo album creation by the event organizer AND any of the guests Stunning full-screen photo slideshows Ordering prints through our partner, HP Snapfish One-click download of a photo album into Windows Live Photo Gallery After the event, return to the event website and click Add album in the Photos module to share those photos! In addition to making it easy for everyone to share photos after the party, Windows Live Events allows guests to share memories in other ways, including a discussion board, guestbook, and sharing videos you upload to Soapbox on MSN Video or other popular video sharing sites.
Works great with other Windows Live services Like Spaces, Events works really well with Windows Live services you’re already familiar with. For example, while an invitation can be sent to any e-mail address, click Invite guests from the event website and quickly invite individuals and groups from your same contact list that’s available in Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, and Spaces.

Here's what some others are saying about the release:

Dev Parikh, one of our very first Spaces MVP's, worked with another MVP Jeroen Bransen, on a slick mashup of Spaces & Live Search Maps.  Here's what Dev had to say about it:

 

Hello everyone,

I am proud to present to you spaces maps. I have seen so many fancy mapping services for MySpace and other networking sites so I decided to make one for spaces.

spaces maps lets you put a map gadget on your space and it will plot visitors who come to your space on the map. There is a selection of maps to choose from and the sign up is a one step process. You just need to choose a username.  Here is a tutorial on how to use the service:

1. Sign up

• Go to www.spacesmaps.com
• Choose your username and your map style. Please choose your username and map type with caution as you cannot change it later, although you can just sign up for a new map later on.#

2.Getting the spaces maps gadget onto Windows Live Spaces

• After you have created your map, it will give you a link to the gadget. Click on the link and you will be taken to the gadget page. Install the gadget on your space.

• After your gadget is installed on your space, position it on your space. I recommend putting it on the side. Please note the map will re-size accordingly with respect to where the gadget is placed. Save your space layout.
• After you are satisfied with your layout, Enter your spaces maps Username, this is the username you signed up with in Step 1 and click on Save.
• Preview your Space and you will see your spaces map with the map style you selected.

 

3. Seeing your spaces maps statistics

• Click on your spaces map and you will be taken to your spaces maps page.
• You can view your the number of visitors who visited your spaces (front-page) with the Day, Week, Month and All Times option. It shows the number of visitors in a Month by default.

• You will also notice your map on this page and a Virtual Earth Map with all your visitors plotted on it with red pins as Indicators. You can Zoom in/out of this map and also navigate to any place on earth. There are different views such as Aerial, Satellite and Hybrid. Use your mouse to move about and your Scroll button to zoom in and out.

 

• You may have some privacy concerns regarding the plotting but I want to let you know that is not accurate enough to be a security threat. I am currently in Newcastle Upon Tyne and it did plot me in Newcastle Upon Tyne, just NOT in the correct area and street. Therefore I can tell you it is safe.
• You can also access your spaces maps stats page from www.spacesmaps.com itself. You will notice that there is a sign-in panel for existing users. Just enter your username and you can view your stats at any time.

 

 

 

 

spaces maps © 2007 | A d3vmax - Bransen Production

Chris, one of our product managers, covers all the latest changes to Spaces over on the Space Craft (and below).   Also check out some specific features covered by Mike and Smuga (another Mike) have to say about it.   

Hope we got more things right than wrong  

-- Jay

New in Spaces:

Communication
There are brand new ways to communicate with your friends, as well as with new people that you’d like to meet.

Your new Spaces home page
Now when you log in, you’ll see a new page dedicated to keeping you up-to-date on changes to your space and what’s new with your Windows Live Messenger contacts.  In one glance you’ll see who has updated their space and who has added comments to your space.  Roll over their picture to see who’s updated their photos, who’s posted a blog entry, and who’s added new lists.

Messaging
Keep in touch with your Spaces friends and meet other people on Spaces by sending them messages. Just put your cursor over their profile picture and you’ll see a “Send a message” link.   You can also use the link in the Visitor tools module on a person’s space.

Guestbook
Add the guestbook module and people visiting your space can leave comments with rich formatting, including images and video. Add the guestbook to your space by clicking here.

Customization
There are many new customization options for Spaces, so you can better control how your space looks.

Custom background image
Now you can upload whatever picture you want from your computer and use it as the background of your space. Upload your image in the Customize menu under the Advanced tab.

Additional colors and themes
There are now more themes to choose from and an easy-to-use color picker. You can also change the fonts!

Gadgets and Modules
With the changes we’ve made to gadgets and modules, now you can customize them to create the layout and design you want for your space.

Size and style
Most gadgets and modules can span the full width of a column, and you can now remove their borders or change their titles to whatever you want by clicking on the arrow in the right hand corner of the gadget or module when you are in Edit mode.

Other cool stuff
You can have multiple modules at the top or bottom of your space that span all of the columns – perfect for your space title and tagline. You can also have more than one version of the same gadget on your space. And if you’re on someone else’s space and see a module you like, you can add it to your space by clicking the “+” sign in the upper-right corner of the module.

Check out and install some spaces gadgets today from the Windows Live Gallery.

Photos
With over 18 million photos uploaded by Spaces users every day, we know that improving the experience of managing photos is important to you, so we added a few new features. 

Managing your photos
There’s a brand new page for viewing and editing albums on your space.

Viewing photos
There’s a new layout for the individual photo pages so it’s faster and easier to view your photos and see all of your comments at a glance.

Mobile
There’s been a dramatic increase in Spaces mobile usage over the past few months, and we wanted to provide great mobile interaction with Spaces. Here’s what’s new:

• See at a glance the recent updates and comments on your space
• Add, delete, view, and browse your friends
• View profile information

Interested in learning more about mobile features for Spaces? Read this Space Craft blog entry

Lists
Lists are now easier to use – and they look even better.

Music lists
Now you can show specific music lists on your spaces home page as well as see multiple results when searching for music on Amazon to create your list.

Book lists
Same as with music! Search for the book and add the information and picture from Amazon.com to your list.

Looks better in narrow view
We’ve make some improvements to make your lists look better when in narrow columns on your space.

APIs and Feeds
We wanted to give you the ability to access your Spaces information from a variety of locations and services, so we added new RSS feeds and opened up our APIs to allow you more freedom. Go crazy with your Spaces data!   Visit: http://dev.live.com/spaces over the next few days for more information. Note: Only spaces with permissions set to “public” can use RSS feeds and APIs.

Profile Updates
There are some new, cool additions to profiles.

Enhanced contact updates preview
When you see a profile picture on Spaces, just put your cursor over the picture and you can see a lot more information about the person than ever before.

Have fun using the new features! We’re looking forward to seeing what you do with your space.   And if you got this far, leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Spaces, Spaces, Microsoft, Social Networking, New Release

Megan, Kate, and I checked out a "First Foods" class today given by a woman who runs one of the mothers' groups.   After the class and a nap, she tried sweet potatoes that mom made for her.  To compare all of our video features at once, I've uploaded the video to Soapbox on MSN Video and included it in this blog entry, the Universal Video Player gadget, and the Soapbox gadget.  Lemme know if I went a little overboard

One of the Spaces features I've worked on a lot over the last 3 years is the Profile module.  Anyone in the software business will tell you that for every feature request made by a customer, the product team has a mile-long list of issues that drive us nuts about our features and it kills us when we have to continually postpone them to a future release in favor of improving other higher-priority areas of the service.

I turned 31 today and ran smack dab into one of those nagging issues I want to fix and one that Spaces loyalists inside & outside of Microsoft have contacted me about regularly -- having to update the age in your profile every year.  We've got Xbox Live modules that automagically update when you pop a new game into the Xbox 360 in your living room, but your Profile module at birthday time acts more like the Neanderthal clocks in your house when Spring-ing ahead or Fall-ing back!

It may seem like a simple math problem, but there are some minor design challenges with the Age field being part of the General section of your profile while your birthday is part of your Personal Contact Info.  Nothing insurmountable, though. 

While I can't make any promises about when we'll be able to fix this, it just became my #1 birthday wish if Ben, German, and DeEtte are listening right now :-)

There are great players in sports, and there are superstars.  Terrell Owens is a superstar - he's silky smooth running with the ball after a catch.  It's killed me to watch him wreck his two teams (49ers and Eagles) and screw with another (Ravens), and I wrote him off completely after he bashed Donovan McNabb and the Eagles last season.  Neither integrity nor being a good teammate are high on T.O.'s list.  T.O. is all about T.O.

However, the news just broke that my Cowboys went off and signed him to a 3-year deal worth $25 million, which is more money than he made with the Eagles:   

ESPN.com - NFL - A star is born: Owens signs with the Cowboys

Part of me hoped that the NFL owners would conspire to lock him completely out of the league this year to send a message to him and other primadonnas/would-be-team-wreckers that it ain't about them, it's about the game itself. 

While I can't look past what he's done or not worry about him doing it again in Dallas, I'm gonna be excited this season when Drew Bledsoe comes to the line with Julius Jones in the backfield, speedy Terry Glenn on one side, and T.O. on the other.  Michael, a friend at work,  just likened it to his Bulls signing crazy Dennis Rodman and then going 72-10.  Bittersweet....

• Use technology jargon outside the office (my wife hates it when I tell her she's randomizing me or that I don't have any more bandwidth)
• Hear a word in a meeting and unconsciously incorporate it in your everyday speech only to find out it's not even a real word or you've copied a butchered pronunication (e.g. pronouncing template "temp-LAY-te" for an entire career)
• Consistently use a real word in its exact opposite context (see title of this post and below)

Don't get me wrong.  I'm no linguist.  But, Mike and I just attended a great presentation from someone in the industry whom we admire, and that person hit a very sensitive nerve - the use of the word transparent.  Webster and I both think it refers to something being completely see-through, meaning everything "behind" it can be seen.  Yet, at least once a week, someone says about a process or application - "Users shouldn't have to deal with this.  It needs to be transparent" while making the case to hide all complexity from that user!  To me, that's the perfect (and intended) job for the word opaque.  If the goal is to prevent the user from seeing dirty laundry or what's under the hood, why make it transparent so they can see through the hamper or the hood? 

Please tell me if I'm completely wrong here.  It's time to remove any doubt in my head so I can move on with life.

The team's been here late, and we pulled off another good one.  We fixed some top annoying issues, added 30+ new themes, Add to My MSN integration, ping Technorati/Feedster/PubSub/MyMSN now, and more.

And, the Messenger team made it easier than ever to get to your own Space (My Space button) and contact card (click on your display picture) in the new version of MSN Messenger. 

Oh, and by the way, we've exceeded 4.5 million Spaces since the December 1st launch!

Scott Counts, a friend of the Spaces team, let us know that the Social Computing Group at Microsoft Research is conducting a study on social networking. It takes 15-20 minutes to complete, and 5 participants win free Microsoft software.

 
If you want to participate:

1) Go to the Social Computing Group's Online Lab website
2) Register for the Online Lab
3) Select the 'Social Networking' study link

Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

It's been a while since I've posted - I don't intend to go that long again.  After a much needed break following the MSN Spaces launch, I'm back in business.  While I personally may have slowed down a little over the holidays, the growth of the service certainly didn't - we just hit 1.5 million Spaces in 6 weeks!!!  Needless to say, the team is jazzed by the success so far and the variety of ways that users have embraced Spaces in their lives. 

This is why we jump out of bed in the morning - to work on communication services that affect millions of users from family like my wife (a very tough sell who fell in love with Spaces at launch) to Susi Johnston (and her journal of the tsunami relief efforts).  The excitement from the community has been infectious, and please, please, please continue to give us your feedback on what you like and what we could be doing better.

Now for the hot tip.  VERY VERY soon, MyMSN will release yet another way to stay on top of what the people & organizations you care about the most are sharing with you.  Word on campus is that a beta of RSS headline support for tracking Spaces and other RSS feeds on your MyMSN page(s) is less than a day away.  I've played with it internally and am thrilled to see it go live.  As MC says, we will be doing more to integrate Spaces with this new feature, but in the meantime, he describes a simple way to allow your viewers to track your Space on MyMSN.  Read more about what you need to do here.

Congrats to the team, and I bet there's even more to come from them soon.  Stay tuned...