The folks at MSN have pulled it off again this Christmas by getting Santa Claus to start using Windows Live Messenger!

You can add the bot to Messenger and have a traditional "sit-down" with Santa. Add Santa to your Messenger contact list using the address northpole@live.com. You can also read his blog by visiting his Spaces Page.

Within less than a week, on the 20th of June to be exact, two new domains will be available for people signing-up for new Windows Live ID accounts!

New users will be able to pick @live.com as well as @windowslive.com for their addresses when signing up.

As Windows Live ID rolls out, your old .NET Passport Accounts (e.g. @hotmail.com and @msn.com accounts) will be automatically migrated. It is not currently clear if the old hotmail.com addresses will remain available after Windows Live has completely launched.

As of Monday, MSN Spaces have changed the format of their URLs. Previously the Spaces URLs were in the following format:

http://spaces.msn.com/<USERNAME>/

They will now be in the following format:

http://<USERNAME>.spaces.msn.com/

All of the old addresses will be automatically forwarded to the newer version, so you don't need to worry about any issues with the URLs.

Following up on our earlier story about MSN Messenger growth in the UK, Anthony Wolf of Australia's NineMSN reports that Australian MSN Messenger users exceeded 4 Million in January 2006.

This equals to MSN Messenger being used by around 20% of Australia's total population, which means that (statistically) 1 out of 5 Aussies use Microsoft's popular Messaging service.

MSN Messenger continues its exceptional growth world wide, fast becoming the most used IM client in many countries around the globe.

MSN Messenger records more phenomenal growth, now being the most used Instant Messaging service in the United Kingdom!

One in six Britons now use MSN Messenger as a means of communicating with friends and family (within the UK and overseas). MSN also revealed that Britons had an average of 51 contacts on their MSN Messenger buddy list.

According to MSN, Messenger usage has grown by a total of 29% since late 2003 which has resulted in UK users sending some 3.7 billion Instant Messages per year!

Microsoft's popular instant messaging client, MSN Messenger has recorded its Millionth Messenger User in Finland this month!

This comes as the number of MSN Messenger users in Finland grew by a whopping 84% since January 2005!

Other statistics show that the service is becoming more prevalent among older users, particularly those aged between 25 and 34.

After several requests, we have added an MSN Block Checker section!

In this section you can find the latest accurate information on Block Checkers for MSN Messenger and how to check if you are blocked on MSN Messenger. Although MSN Block Checkers generally do not work, many people still want to check if they have been blocked on MSN Messenger!

You can access the block checker page from the Main menu to your left, or just Click here to go to the MSN Block Checker page

Nokia will be bundling MSN Messenger in one of its recent phones for the Chinese market, after striking a deal with MSN China.

MSN Messenger will be integrated into the Nokia 6708 in what is the first deal between Nokia and Microsoft. This is the first step in what could be a long lasting partnership between the two companies, and may result in MSN Messenger being available on more mobile phones, in more countries.

The Nokia 6708 smartphone is equipped with a touchscreen, a 1.3 MegaPixel Camera and runs the Symbian Operating System.

Microsoft has released a brand new MSN Messenger bot called 'Encarta® Instant Answers'!

This MSN chat bot, as the name suggests, provides answers to your questions from Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia through MSN Messenger. This can be extremely useful for quick fact finding or some 'Instant' homework help!

Simply add the bot to your MSN Messenger contact list, say 'hello' to it and follow the prompts from the conversation.

The email address to add in MSN Messenger for this bot is encarta@conversagent.com.

MSN has launched a new service aimed at providing its services to mobile users.

The Pocket MSN service allows users to have access to services such as Hotmail, MSN Messenger and MSN.com directly via a mobile phone or PDA. The official Microsoft website states: "Pocket MSN offers easy access to MSN Hotmail and Messenger, along with quick access to popular MSN content."

The MSN Messenger features are listed as:

• Remain available when it's not convenient to talk, like on a subway, in a restaurant or during a meeting
• Send e-mail to offline Messenger contacts with one simple tap and update your free/busy/away status
• Your contacts will see you as online and mobile, so they will know to expect slower, abbreviated responses

For more information and to download Pocket MSN for your mobile device, just visit http://mobile.msn.com/ac.aspx?cid=pmsn_market.

Coca-Cola's Sprite brand is inviting you to digitally spray paint a virtual city in a new entertainment campaign on MSN.

"The Wall," lets you choose your canvas - anything from the back of a bus, to a messenger bag, a tunnel, or a person's upper arm. Then you can use the provided stencils, images, text tools and colors to create virtual graffiti artwork!

Once you are finished with your work, you can email it, use it as a background in MSN Messenger, or download it as a wallpaper or screensaver for your computer.

You can visit the mini-site at thewall.msn.com.

Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant has launched a News Bot offering the latest news and access to its news archives via MSN Messenger!

Once a user adds the bot to their MSN Messenger contact list, the bot will appear as a standard contact. Once a user signs into MSN Messenger, the bot will message the user with the latest news within a few minutes.

Dutch users can sign-up for this service from its official page.

Microsoft's OneCare Live security subscription service has been updated with a feature to protect MSN Messenger users.

In the newest version, Windows OneCare will now run automatic scans of files received from the MSN Messenger IM client, a significant new feature designed to thwart the growing threat from instant message-borne malware.

Microsoft has once again increased the MSN Messenger contact list capacity by 200%! This means that you can now have up to 600 buddies on your MSN Contact List!

Earlier this year, the MSN Buddy List limit was doubled. This is a large increase in a short period of time, comparing to last years limit of 150 Contacts.

This change should become effective on most, if not all, MSN Messenger clients. But be aware that the larger your contact list is, the longer it will take to sign into MSN Messenger!

As you may have noticed we have added a brand new navigation bar to the top of the website!

You can now use the shortcuts and the drop down menus to access our most popular MSN Messenger resources like our Animated Emoticons from anywhere on the site!

There are currently two drop down menus (Main and Quick access to the MSN Tools). A more categorized drop down menu system will be coming very shortly!