Microsoft today announced an overhaul of its Windows Live, Hotmail and MSN Messenger products, with a raft of new features available from February 2009.

The changes include a new version of MSN Messenger, which will aggregate content from 50 different sites including Flickr, Wordpress, Photobucket, Twitter and LastFM. Users of these sites can now have data from the services streamed directly into MSN Messenger.

The new MSN Messenger pulls data from a range of sources, and is more customisable.
(Credit: Microsoft)

MSN Messenger will also be now incorporated into Hotmail, allowing users to sign into either service to get access to both. Users will also now be able to sign into a single account multiple times, allowing them to use the same Windows Live account on several devices, such as a PC and a phone, simultaneously.

MSN's announcement parallels the announcement by Google that they will be including voice and video chat in Gmail, which has a significantly larger user base compared to Hotmail in Australia. Microsoft claims that more than more than 7.5 million Australians have a Windows Live ID.

The new Windows Live homepage also serves a social networking utility.
(Credit: Microsoft)

Several other Microsoft live services will also include improved integration — for example Hotmail will now automatically add email addresses from MSN Messenger, and the Windows Live Calender will add MSN Messengers contacts' birthdays.

Finally, there will significant changes to the Windows Live homepage, which will include a live status feed from several social networking services such as Twitter.