The Windows Live team in the UK has done it again!  They are always rolling out creative stuff, with the latest being www.minimise-me.com.  Check it out and you can create your own "mini me" (apologies to Austin Powers fans) that will appear as your display picture in Windows Live Messenger.  Mine is shown at the left.

They have also created various celebrity characters as well, albeit some with a decidedly UK flair.  Matt has blogged about some of the top celeb downloads. 

Give it a go and create that miniature version of yourself you've always wanted!

- Marcus

One of the best things (IMHO) we've done with Windows Live recently has been the i'm Initiative.  With the help of everyone who uses Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail, we share a portion of our advertising revenue with the cause of choice of the person using our products.

Recently, I had a chance to talk with Tina He, a product management intern at Microsoft who is working on the initiative.  Tina and I chatted about i'm, what customers are saying about it, what benefits have resulted from it, and what we have planned for the future.  It was great to have Tina as an intern here this summer and hopefully we might see her back here in the future after she's done at Wharton.

You can download just these podcasts using the links below:

• i'm Initiative (WMA format)
• i'm Initiative (MP3 format)

Or subscribe to my whole podcast series using these links:

• Windows Live Podcast Series (WMA format)
• Windows Live Podcast Series (MP3 format)

(And yes, I realize the irony of this graphic, since this podcast about the i'm Initiative really is all talk.  But I couldn't resist.)

- Marcus

Earlier this week, I decided to start a podcast series around Windows Live.  For those of you who aren't familiar with podcasting, there are plenty of resources on the web that can tell you all about it, ranging from how to best record your audio (or video), edit it, host it, and syndicate it using RSS.  One of the best explanations comes from Common Craft who do these awesome videos:

Common Craft Video Explaining Podcasting:

It all looks so easy.  Or so I thought.

I thought it would be a simple matter of uploading my audio files to SkyDrive, linking to them in a Spaces blog post, and the resulting Spaces RSS feed would "automagically" transform these linked files into enclosed files.  It didn't quite work out that way.  It turns out that neither the RSS feeds from Spaces or from SkyDrive do this automagical thing I wanted.

So here's how I got it to work anyway, with a little help from some extra stuff and a little manual effort.  This is a bit of a long post, so you might want to grab a cup of coffee.

Part 1:  Store Your Audio Files on SkyDrive

This is the easy part.  Record your audio files and then put them up on a public folder in SkyDrive.  I've decided to create a folder for all my podcasts, and the put each podcast (in both WMA and MP3 formats) in separate folders:

Part 2:  Create your RSS feed(s)

I decided to create two feeds, one for people that want WMA formatted audio and one for people that want MP3 instead.  You can "hand craft" your RSS feed using a text editor like Notepad to build the XML file, but I found a great little app called FeedForAll that helps you build the files.  It's free to try and a nominal fee to register (which I've paid gladly!).  I won't describe all the features of the product and how to use them here.  It's fairly easy to figure out.

However, I do want to give you a couple important tips when using FeedForAll.

Make sure you provide a good link to your blog entries about your podcasts in the main Feeds tab and the Items tab (Feeds tab shown below):

This is the link people could click on to read more about your podcast versus listening to it.  I actually decided to link to my RSS feed of all my podcast blog entries.

Second, when you start creating the items in the feed, paste in the URL for the actual audio file (not just the icon file display in SkyDrive).  Get the playable URL by right clicking on the file in SkyDrive and copying the shortcut.

To better explain, click on these two URLs to see what happens:

• You DON'T Want This
• You DO Want This

Make sure you strip off the "?download" part of the second URL before you paste it into FeedForAll.  An example entry is shown below:

Now, get the exact length of the file to enter in the FeedForAll window shown above, call up the properties of that file from wherever you have it stored on your main hard drive (before you uploaded it to SkyDrive).  An example properties window is shown at right.  Notice how the file size above and the file size to the right are the same 8887026 bytes.

Repeat this same process for all the items (audio files) you want to include in your podcast feed.

Part 3:  Storing Your RSS Feed XML Files On-Line

After you create your RSS feeds, you need to store them on-line.  These are the little XML gems that are going to be the key for your subscribers.  You have a couple options here.

You could put them to your public folder on SkyDrive.  This is okay if you have a set of items in your feed and you're not going to be adding any new items to that feed.

If you are planning to add new items to the feed over time, I found out SkyDrive isn't a workable option.  The reason is the next time you upload the new XML file to SkyDrive, it creates a new file identifier that will be inside the actual URL link which basically creates a new feed and would require a new subscription.  Your old feed becomes an orphan.

So if you do plan to continue to add files over time (and most podcasters do), you'll need to find a new place to put your files.  Fortunately, Microsoft has another option you can try.  You can use Microsoft Office Live Small Business to create a quick website and upload files to that website.  Here is the way that looks inside the administration tools of Microsoft Office Live Small Business:

If you have another on-line storage option, you can use that instead.  Just make sure the XML file is displayed as a feed when you click on it, and not some file icon representation.

Part 4:  Doing the Blog Post in Spaces

OK, you're almost there.  The final step is doing a blog post in Spaces, and including the links to these new XML files you just posted. 

If you use SkyDrive, make sure the URLs to post should be the actual links and not just the links to the icon display of the file in SkyDrive.  This is exactly the same as what you did to get the right URLs for the audio files themselves.  For example:

• You DON'T Want This
• You DO Want This

If you have your XML file stored some where else (like my Office Live Small Business example above), just make sure (again) that the URL shows the actual feed and not just an icon link to the file.

Now anyone can click on that feed, subscribe to it, and they'll have your podcast files included as enclosures.  When you add new audio files, just add them as new items to your RSS feeds and repost those XML files back up on your on-line storage location.  Remember, if you use SkyDrive and repost your XML files, you're creating a brand new feed which will be problematic for all the reasons discussed above.

It's not automagical, but it's not very hard either!

Good luck building your own podcasts,

- Marcus

P.S.  I'm talking with the SkyDrive and Spaces teams about how we can make their RSS feeds include enclosures, so maybe this will become automagical in the future.

I've started taking my portable digital recorder around Microsoft  and doing quick interviews with some of my fellow employees that work in and around Windows Live.  For this first podcast of what I hope will be a long-term series, I connected with Ryan Gavin, Senior Director of Product Management for Windows Live.

Ryan and I chatted about the question we all get asked most -- "What is Windows Live?"  People are always looking for a good general overview of Windows Live, especially when it covers so much territory, ranging from photos to e-mail to blogging. 

Check out the podcast and please let me know what you think.

• Windows Media Audio Format
• MP3 Format

More to come in the future about Photo Gallery, the i'm Initiative, and other cool stuff.  I'm also going to start doing some Podcasts with some of the folks in our Windows Live community too.

July 23 Update: Making Real Podcast RSS Feeds 

Jamie correctly pointed out that I need a real podcast RSS feed that includes enclosures to truly call this a podcast.  The links above take you to the files, and you can play them on your PC or download them manually to your iPod or Zune.  But most portable media aficionados want those file delivered as part of an RSS feed.

After a little exploring, some trial-and-error, and some help in testing from Jamie, I'm pleased to include links to the RSS feeds for the podcasts in both WMA and MP3 format:

• WMA RSS Feed
• MP3 RSS Feed

Look for a new blog post from me soon with all the details on how you can turn Spaces and SkyDrive into your own personal podcasting platform!

July 24 Update: Bad News, Good News about Storing the XML Files

OK, one more wrinkle came up to be sorted out.  I found that if you update the RSS feeds stored on SkyDrive with new XML files, the file ID portion of the URL changes which basically creates a new feed and orphans the last one.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that I found a different place to store these XML files.  More on that later today when I blog about this whole adventure in detail.

But for now, please use the new links below as the RSS feeds for my podcast series:

• WMA RSS Feed
• MP3 RSS Feed

- Marcus