After the initial announcement by Microsoft about Messenger Connect there has been little else from the company about exactly what this service can do. I am very interested to know more about Messenger Connect as, from what I can tell, it sounds very, very exciting.

Today I think we might have seen some of the potential of Messenger Connect with the BBC’s planned integration in their new version of iPlayer. This integration allows friends to sync what they are viewing and chat with each other while watching a show, this works on both recorded and live programs which I think will make TV, in the UK at least, a much more social event.

Following my post about the new Windows Live Messenger features of the iPlayer I was reminded about a demo that Microsoft and the BBC put together at PDC 2008 in which Live Mesh and Silverlight technologies were used together to provide a very powerful viewing experience (thanks Ian for the link). This demonstration showed off some excellent features of Live Mesh which, as many of you know, development on seems to have come to a complete standstill.

However I now believe that Live Mesh as a brand has been disbanded and its technologies split. The client side of Mesh that provided syncing of files and folders across multiple devices and the cloud along with remote desktop access has now been moved to the new Windows Live application and service, Sync. The service side of Live Mesh has therefore been moved to another, new service; Messenger Connect. Don’t expect to hear anything more about Live Mesh from Microsoft.

I have also been informed that Messenger Connect is pretty much an older Microsoft service, rebranded and with some new features, the new features being the Live Mesh technologies.

From this information it seems like Messenger Connect will be an easy way for developers to connect to Microsoft’s Live Services and more than just Messenger but all the other Windows Live services too. But more than just being able to connect with the services it will also allow developers to use the syncing technologies of Live Mesh to keep a wide range of services in sync wherever and whenever sometime accesses a service. This could be, as demoed, watching a video, then pausing it and moving to a different device and resuming from exactly the same place where the video was paused.

I’d say that is quite a major step for Microsoft who have kept a lot of their Live services closed off and could offer a lot of potential for services and websites.

I am on the search for more information about Messenger Connect so if you know anything please let me know, but I believe all will become clear next month when Windows Live Wave 4 is launched.