Chat with Facebook friends in Hotmail
Microsoft announced Monday that Facebook chat is now available to Hotmail users worldwide, wherever Facebook has a presence.
Microsoft first added Facebook chat to Hotmail back in September, but at that point it was only available in six regions. Several weeks ago, the feature went global via Windows Live Messenger, and it is now available everywhere via Hotmail, too.
“And while Gmail beat us to bringing their own chat into the inbox, we have now gone a step further and brought both our own chat and Facebook chat into your inbox. Starting now, we will be displaying notifications of this update in Hotmail,” Dick Craddock, group program manager for Hotmail, wrote in a blog post.
Microsoft expects most of all a better integration of different services and more intensive use of its online offerings.
Since announcing the availability of Facebook chat in Messenger worldwide two weeks ago, nearly 2.5 million more people connected their Facebook accounts to Windows Live, bringing the total to over 20 million customers. And with three out of four Hotmail customers using Facebook, Microsoft expect that many more people will want to take advantage of this feature, now that it’s available from your Hotmail inbox.