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Happy Collections Day!

We're very pleased to announce the newest release of Live.com! This latest update includes some great additions to the site. Here's a rundown of what is now available.

Live.com Collections

Have you ever created a page on Live.com and thought to yourself "wow - I wish other people could see this?" Well, now they can! Introducing... Live.com Collections.

You've probably already seen some of the Collections we've created, including our special holiday and celebrity themes (these can now be found under the "Windows Live" folder in our directory), but now we're letting you create your own!

Collections include all the feeds and gadgets on the page (including any settings that you've customized), as well as the page's name, layout and theme.  You can choose to share your page via a link (which can be sent to anyone including your friends, you mom, your dog...) or in Windows Live Gallery, where you can share your creation with the world (Gallery sharing is not yet available in all markets).

To create your own collection, first sign in to Live.com, and then follow these 4 easy steps:
    
     Step 1: Customize your page. If you need help, be sure to check out our product tour.

     Step 2: Select the "Share" link (remember, you must be signed it). 
    

     Step 3: Choose to share your Collection using Gallery or a link:
      

    Step 4: Enjoy sharing your Collection!
    
Looking for ideas for types of Collections to create? Here are some to get you started:

• Your Hometown: Name a page after your hometown. Add the town to the weather gadget, add the local sports team to the FoxSports gadget, add feeds from the local papers, and share with your neighbors!
• Your Friends: Add feeds from all of your friends' blogs and send them a link to add the collection to their Live.com page.
• Pretty Pictures: Create a Collection filled with feeds to some of your favorite photography blogs. Set the number of items displayed in each feed to 1 for some extra color and pizzazz. Share it in Gallery!
• Anything you want - Live.com is your page. Use your imagination and get creative!

Of course, Collections are not just fun to create, but they're fun to add as well. Be sure to keep your eyes on the Gallery as the number of available collections begins to grow. In the spirit of Live.com, once you add a Collection, feel free to customize it however you see fit.

We'd love to see your collections! After you create one, be sure to post the link in the comments of this post. It's a great way for us to see what you're up to.
 

Send to Mobile

Been wanting to try out the Live.com Beta for Mobile, but haven't figured out how to get it on your phone? We've now simplified the process! Simply sign in, and click the "Add Stuff" button. There you will find the "Send to mobile" option. Clicking that link will allow you to send a specially formatted text message to your mobile device, which will let you access your Live.com content from anywhere you go (currently the first page only).

 
(This feature is not yet available in all markets)

Performance

As always, performance was a major focus for the team as we worked on this release. We worked on improvements in a number of areas, but here's where we think you'll see the biggest differences:

• RSS Feeds - The majority of optimization work was done in this area. You should see your RSS feeds appear on your page much faster than in previous releases. Additionally, the amount of data you download has been significantly reduced, which will help speed up page load times (especially for users with slower connections). Finally, we've improved the way we show feed images to be significantly less resource intensive.
• Page switching - We put a lot of work into speeding up the experience of moving between pages. Previously, there would be a noticeable delay after selecting a page before the content could be delivered to you. Now, you should see much better performance in this area, with more of the page being available to you sooner.
• Responsiveness - The team spent a lot of time ensuring that the page is as responsive as possible as it loads your content.  This means that if you just want to search, you'll be able to do so even if the page has not finished loading. This is a subtler change, but that's the point :)

And much much more...

We've worked hard to make sure that this is the best Live.com release to date. We've made lots of little changes and bug fixes that we think will improve your overall experience. This release also includes the groundwork for several other features that we'll be rolling out in the near future. Stay tuned to the blog for more information as soon we can post it :)

So, there you have it - hopefully you're just as excited to start using this release as we were to ship it. As always, let us know what you think in the comments, or by emailing us directly at livefb-at-microsoft-dot-com.

Let's see those Collections!