This CTP provides ASP.NET server controls related to Windows Live Contacts, Windows Live ID authentication and Silverlight Streaming. This release brings developers closer to building Web sites using ASP.NET and  Visual Studio toolset.

Developers now can make use of these controls and integrate Windows Live services from Visual Studio IDE. This release currently works with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer Express 2008 Beta 2 releases. Also, this release requires you to install Microsoft ASP.NET Futures (July 2007 CTP) and Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax 1.0 Extensions. More information on pre-requisites and installations are available here.

There are four controls introduced with this release. These are:

• Contacts: Contacts control allows you to integrate Windows Live Contacts with your Web site. You can use contacts control to share your web site visitor's contacts, if they opt for, with your web site's functionality. For example, if your web site has service related to shipping products from your catalog, you can offer your web site users to sign-in into contacts control and choose the address of the contact from their list of contacts. This way your web site user does not need to type the address of their contact multiple times. Additionally, users can view presence information for their contacts, initiate a Windows Live Messenger conversation with their contact, Send predefined message from your web site to users' contacts.

As a developer it allows you to specify look-and-feel of the control to blend with your web page's visuals, specify which data you need to interact with, provide event handlers for sign-in/sign-out and data transfer operations.  More details on the contacts control are available here. JavaScript version of this control is already available, for details click here.

• IDLogin: IDLogin control provides easy hookup into Windows Live ID authentication mechanism. After you register your application with Windows Live ID, you can use your Application ID and Secret with this control to include Windows Live ID authentication. This control provides ApplicationUserID which is a unique, site specific identifier for each Windows Live ID user that signs into your web site. You can use this identifier for personalization of your web sites, provide access to certain web resources etc.  IDLogin control performs sign-in/sign-out actions and provides you event handlers for sign-in/sign-out actions. More information for this control is available here.

• IDLoginView: IDLoginView control adds new templates and Windows Live ID authentication to ASP.NET LoginView Control. This control allows you to associate users' Windows Live ID and their ASP.NET membership profile to enable single-sign-in experience. After this association has been made and saved, your web site users can simply sign-in to Windows Live ID and get authenticated in other Windows Live services integrated on your site as well as ASP.NET membership authentication of your Web site. This your Web site users have single sign-in experience and get benefits of both Windows Live services and your web site. You can read more specifics about this control by clicking here.

• SilverlightStreamingMedia: This control helps you embed your videos from your Silverlight Streaming account into your web pages. After you create an account with Silverlight Streaming services and upload the videos, you can drag and drop this control on your web page, specify your account id and key, choose the video to be embedded into the web page. With these steps, you are ready to play your videos from Silverlight Streaming services. This control extends Media Control (ASP.NET Futures).

PS: If you were wondering, I transitioned into Program Manager role with Windows Live Developer Platform. Earlier, I was test lead with one of the teams with Microsoft.com group. BTW, we are hiring, check out at Microsoft Career site.

Update: Updated Link for Windows live tools image.

Update: Fixed CSS Style issues for width of post, thanks for feedback.