The blogosphere was atwitter (pun intended) more than the previous day or two about Facebook;s recent revamp created to make user pages far more profile-centric.But Facebook isn;t the only 1 heading this route. It feels like Microsoft is heading extra profile-centric inside a few numerous methods with its upcoming Windows Reside software program and services.Microsoft recently completed its internal “Milestone 1″ release of its next wave of Windows Reside companies, according to Brian Hall, General Manager of Windows Live. Microsoft is planning to make the first test bits of software and providers for the PC, Web and phone that are part of “Windows Reside Wave 3″ available to folks outside the company as part of a private beta later this summer, he said.Hall declined to provide specifics, but he did note that Microsoft will be “taking advantage of the profile concept with Live” in its next release.Windows Live Profile already exists as part of Windows Reside Spaces, Microsoft;s existing blogging/social-networking platform. I;m not clear whether Microsoft is intending to replace Reside Spaces with a additional profile-centric platform or just make Reside profile far more front and center to the next version of Reside Spaces.“There;s lots of opportunity for improvement with Spaces,” Hall said. He noted that the person base of Live Spaces grew quickly, “but the (person) engagement on Spaces compared to other social sites is low.”It also seems like, from hints Hall dropped when I chatted with him this week, that the updated Windows Reside Profile technology will be far more tightly integrated with the next versions of Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger and other Windows Live solutions.“We;re not creating another social network,” Hall said. “We;re extra about fusing the best of our platform” with other Reside services, he said.When Microsoft finally takes the covers off its much more profile-centric Live wares, I;ll be curious to see how substantially the Microsoft Research C2 project — which I likened to Microsoft;s version of FriendFeed — played into the design. Stay tuned.Meanwhile, speaking of things Live-related, the LiveSide guys noted Microsoft has made available test versions of the mobile portal and Mac clients for Reside Mesh,
Windows 7 Activation, its synchronization and collaboration service. The mobile portal is currently available to testers; the pre-beta Mac version was briefly available, but Microsoft pulled it after LiveSide wrote about it.