Who Are The 4.5 Million Windows Live Messenger Users?

windowslivemessengerdownloadWindows Live Messenger (aka MSN Messenger, aka Microsoft’s ad-laden IM client) turns 10 this week, and Microsoft calculates that 4.5 million Australians use it each month. I have a simple question: why?

Amongst Lifehacker readers, Windows Live Messenger gets pretty short shrift. It didn’t make the cut in our best instant messenger Hive Five. Now that it’s no longer part of the default Windows installation, I suspect many of us don’t go anywhere near it (apart from anything else, it can wreak havoc with your start-up times).

With services like Google Wave defining a new future for communications, and other IM clients offering multiple logins and leaner runtimes, Live Messenger seems like something of an anachronism. But perhaps I’m being unfair. Are you a secret — or not so secret — lover of Microsoft’s IM approach? Explain why in the comments.


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