Microsoft is moving onwards with the development of Windows Live Messenger Wave 4. The Messenger team is currently working on it and it is expected to be released soon.
Windows Live Messenger 2010 is coming with a lot of new features.
The following screenshot is of the main window of Windows Live messenger 2010. They way is shows your contact has changed a bit. The main change is that Windows Live Messenger 2010 focuses more on Social Stream updates (social network integration such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc). It has been shown in the left side of the main window as you see below. These updates are from your Messenger contacts and the data is provided by Windows Live.
Another feature of Windows Live messenger 2010 is tabbed conversations. Users have been requesting this functionality for years and Microsoft has finally listened and built it in this version. The tabs look the same as Internet Explorer 8 tabs. [Ed’s note: that could be a bad thing if tabs switch like IE8 as wel!]
The other popular feature is Photo Sharing. You can now directly share your photos with your contacts online because Windows Live Messenger 2010 integrates with Windows Live photos and Bing images.
Windows Live Messenger 2010 will also support Video Messages which allow you to record messages through a webcam and then send them to online or offline recipients.
In Windows Live Messenger 2010 Photo sharing and Video buttons have been moved from the top of the menu to the typing area, while the Winks and Background buttons have been removed from the typing area and merged with the Emoticons menu.
Some other features include customization, larger display pictures by default, selecting which side display pictures will appear and option to turn off Clear Type font rendering. This version also fixes server issues where messages are undelivered.
Expect more details to be revealed about Windows Live Messenger 2010 at MIX10 Conference in March. We might even see a Beta release by then.