ANNOUNCEMENT: New capabilities in Messenger APIs (Smooth Sign Up for Sharing Presence, Presence API, Color configuration on IM Control)

The team have been doing some really cool stuff lately;

We got some feedback:

Its great but I can't have my users copying and pasting, how can I streamline the signup so all my users can easily publish their presence (for example a social network).
I love the Windows Live blue but I want to configure the colors
How can I programmatically query the presence.
Its all good but I want more!

What have we done?

Ability to Invite Users to Share Online Presence (and return the ID): You can now add a hyperlink to your site saying "Show my Presence" and that goes out to the WebSignup.aspx page which allows a user to opt in to show their presence and receive IMs via the Web.
- Link to http://settings.messenger.live.com/applications/websignup.aspx?returnurl=http://dev.live.com&privacyurl=http://dev.live.com and you are returned their approval status and their Messenger Unique Identifier (an ID unique for that user which isn't their Windows Live ID)

Querying the Windows Live Presence API - a JSON end point which returns the user's Status, Display Name, and a URL to the image.
```
 
```

"status": "Offline",

"icon":

"height": 16,

"url": "http://settings.messenger.live.com/static/w13r2/Conversation/img/Status_Online.gif",

"width": 16

},

"statusText": "Online",

"id": "12BACD345678@apps.messenger.live.com",

"displayName": "Name"

Customization of the colors in the IM Control & new badges
- colors are configured via the URL in the IFRAME, we have a few sample colors.
  - <iframe src=
    - http://settings.messenger.live.com/Conversation/IMMe.aspx?invitee=dcc7f76fcd6c161a@apps.messenger.live.com
    - &mkt=en-US
    - &useTheme=true
    - &foreColor=333333
    - &backColor=FDC098
    - &linkColor=333333
    - &borderColor=FB8233
    - &buttonForeColor=333333
    - &buttonBackColor=FFC9A5
    - &buttonBorderColor=FB8233
    - &buttonDisabledColor=FFC9A5
    - &headerForeColor=333333
    - &headerBackColor=FC9E60
    - &menuForeColor=333333
    - &menuBackColor=FFFFFF
    - &chatForeColor=333333
    - &chatBackColor=FFFFFF
    - &chatDisabledColor=F6F6F6
    - &chatErrorColor=760502
    - &chatLabelColor=6E6C6C
  - />

Seeing this implemented in a sample - I added the collection code into the Adventure Works Resorts Quick App (WLQuickApps.Social) - all the code is available at http://codeplex.com/wlquickapps