Microsoft Launches Social Network

A couple nice posts from Techcrunch here, outlining the Microsoft push into social networking (lots of money still sitting around since NOT buying Yahoo).  In this first one, Michael Arrington tells about how MSFT leveraged its user base in Windows Live Messenger (by FAR the biggest IM network) to jump start its social network at home.live.com by importing the profiles of the IM users.  Microsoft is apparently making an energetic attempt to lock in online users with a suite of online apps and web services to encourage more commitment to the brand and to get the viral push of the network.  Arrington followed up a couple days later (today, Nov 14) with a post that points at how MSFT used its connection at Facebook (remember that $240 million investment they made a while back?) to mine user information, including email addresses, to try to get more people enrolling on their new social network.  Is this in violation of Facebook’s privacy policy?  Microsoft wants to be invited to the party but they aren’t; so, they crash it. I will be very curious watching their shiny new social network evolve.