Hello, and happy new year, everyone!

My name is Piero Sierra, and I’m the Group Program Manager for Windows Live SkyDrive.

Last year, Windows Live introduced its first online file storage solution for consumers: SkyDrive. We got a terrific response, but we also heard from some folks that it was confusing to have two ways to share a photo (the old way on Spaces, and the new way on SkyDrive). We agreed. We also heard concerns that we didn’t provide enough sharing options—folders were either public to the whole Internet, or required people you were sharing with to get a Windows Live ID. As much as we love Windows Live ID, we know not everyone can be expected to sign up for one.

So in our latest release of Windows Live, we have consolidated all photo and file sharing into SkyDrive. To make things easier to find, we’ve provided several entry points to your files—Photos (just for images), Spaces (for those who want to display things in a more personalized place), and SkyDrive (where you can access all your files and photos in one place). At the same time, we began to provide one consistent set of tools to help you manage all of your files, whether they are images or documents. And the tools we offer are getting better too— now, you can easily create a beautiful slideshow, move and copy items, and you have a lot more storage space—25 GB. But that’s just half the battle—we’ve also tried our best to make sharing super simple.

Let me show you how.

Let’s imagine I’m a college student, and my friends and I are working on a project about the current economic crisis for our “Econ 108” class. The project includes some Word and PowerPoint documents and a few photos. From anywhere on Windows Live, I can click the More menu, and then click SkyDrive:

Now I’m on the SkyDrive home page. I can see my recently updated folders, as well as what people in my network have been doing with files and photos lately.

This is very similar to the Windows Live Photos page, since both are powered by SkyDrive. The Photos page simply filters out all file activity that is not related to photos.

From here I click Create folder, which allows me to quickly name my folder, select whom to share it with in the dropdown, and start my upload. But since I want more precise control over who can access this folder, I’ll go ahead and click Select people… from the dropdown menu:

This reveals several more sharing options. I can share with all my “Econ 108 buddies” at once (because I created a category for them earlier in my Hotmail contact list). I can also control their level of access:

Note: If I hadn’t already created this category of “Econ 108 buddies,” I could easily have entered in my buddies’ names or e-mail addresses one by one.

 

I’ll set it up so they can “add, edit details, and delete files,” since they’ll all be contributing to the project.

Now comes the fun part. Windows Live provides a little ActiveX control that makes uploading to SkyDrive easy. All I have to do is drag the files I want from a folder directly onto the webpage:

Then I click Upload, and in a few moments my documents are up on SkyDrive:

Now the documents are online, and my friends can get to them. Of course, they’ll also be notified in the “What’s new” list that they see on their respective Home and SkyDrive pages:

So far, so good. But what about my friend Bob, who uses Gmail, and doesn’t have a Windows Live ID? How can I ensure he gets these files without having to sign up for an account?

All I have to do is click Send a link at the top of the folder page, and then type in his e-mail address:

Checking the little box that says “Don’t require recipients to sign in to Windows Live ID” will send Bob a special link that will let him see the album without signing in. If I later change my mind, I can break this link by clicking Edit permissions, and then clearing the check box. It’s as easy as that.

And of course, I can add as many folks as I want to the list of people I’m sharing with, and even share with other categories of people like “Friends” or “Favorites.”

Now, all my Econ buddies have access to our homework folder. They can view the documents and comment on them, download them, and, if they want to, make changes and upload new versions.

Sharing files is much easier now, while still offering flexibility for more advanced needs.

Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think!

- Piero

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January 2, 2009

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