Microsoft Corporation is now running the last mile of their plan to release an updated service for the Windows Live set of software products, which will give the latter a major makeover by turning it into a social network.

The company’s “Wave 3” of services for the Windows Live platform has been scheduled to begin being delivered during the following weeks, seeking to provide social networking sites enhanced integration with the Live software. Consequently, Microsoft has brought forth several updates to Windows Live, including links to over 50 other websites such as Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, WordPress and Yelp, aiming to enable third-party social networking feeds to be added to Live services.

Nevertheless, the 50 social networking sites list features two major absentees, Facebook and MySpace. The former website was launched back in 2004, on February 4, having since then managed to gather over 120 million active users throughout the world, while the latter, which was the most popular social networking site in the United States in 2006, attracts approximately 230,000 new users daily.

Other new features that the „Wave 3” will bring to Windows Live include a photo sharing service called Windows Live Photos, along with Windows Live Profile, People and Groups, which Microsoft plans to roll out as part of a long-term strategy focusing on organization-targeted services.

Furthermore, Live will allow users to have instant messaging chats with a maximum of 20 other people at the same time, while Live Hotmail will enable them to aggregate e-mails from several different accounts.