Like Google Like Microsoft

I just had to respond to a question from a protected Twitter post by Kathryn asking for Microsoftish Web 2.0 apps. It seems to me the Google Web 2.0 ascendancy seems to have blinded users to the parallel Microsoft Web 2.0 world which, surprise, surprise, occasionally outshines Google believe it or not.

The best gateway into MS Web 2.0 is via http://home.live.com where you only need a free Windows Live ID. Then you have available Hotmail of course which everyone should know about (there are 500 million users after all) and the whole Windows Live wave 3.0 web apps:

• public/private Profiles to join with People (contacts) and Groups to form your social network and a Friendfeed like amalgam capability for other existing social networks
• Photos ( full photo albums)
• under the More tab we get to
  • Calendar and Events
  • Spaces blogs/web sites (as good as or better than Blogger)
  • Skydrive, the online storage standout – 25GB of free online space where you can store and retrieve any kind of folder/file hierarchy as long as each file is 50MB or less

All this stuff is accessible via any modern browser without plugins. As days go by the Bing branding will likely begin to take over from Live.

Although not pure Web 2.0 the free online synchronisation services are also free but require client apps to be downloaded. More details at http://dotdolfin.com/software-services/.