The Windows Live Expo and Windows Live Alerts teams have teamed up and launched a new feature that allows you to post a listing and automatically opt-in your Messenger buddies to be notified with an desktop alert (sample below) indicating that you have posted something for sale on Expo.    We have been watching this feature and have blown away with the response.  The click thru rates for buddies wanted to see what their friend has just posted is amazing.   To give it a whirl, simply go to: http://expo.live.com (create a profile if you don't have one) and post an item.     Try it out it is addictive.  

For those of you that have followed the Windows Live Alerts service, you'll have noticed the team's evolution of the service, with new features that enable content providers to brand their notificiations and now associate advertising with content that their readers have opted into receiving through the Alerts service. The team has referred to the evolution of this feature set as "Super Toast".  The term "toast" being our name for the little window that pops up within Messenger when a users receives a notification about content they've elected to receive. Classic Alert: an IM based Alert with a small logo of the content provider (Newsweek example) Branded Alert: an IM based Alert where branding is applied to  (mess.be example) Alert with Advertisement: an IM based Alert where an applicable ad is associated with the notification (the MSN Weather Alert with Ford Escape example)  While the Classic Alert (Newsweek example) has been for several years, the Branded Alert (mess.be example) is relatively recent and the Alert with Advertisement (MSN Weather with Ford Escape advertisement example) is brand new.  We're excited to release this latest improvement to the service that tens of millions of users around the world enjoy.

If you have a site with a RSS feed, it is easy to add alerts so your subscribers get updated instantly!  The Alerts team loves when we discover fun uses of alerts.  Here are a couple of recently added partners:   Triforce - From the site FAQ: Q. Is any member of The Triforce a current videogaming world champion? A. (simon) Great question! Yes, I am: at Sensible Soccer. The official - and inaugural - World Cup was held only once, back in 1994. I won it. It has never been held again, which makes me, Simon, the current World Champion. Ste can hold his own at Dancing Stage Whatever Edition. And David likes Army Men. Product Reviews Net - "Where you will find information on the latest gadgets and technology.".  To get started go to: http://signup.alerts.msn.com

Windows Live Alerts on your blog or space is a great tool for letting people that follow your blog to instantly know when you publish updates, driving frequency of use and happy readers.  It takes a little manual configuration, but the following steps are straight forward: Sign up for Alerts here You'll receive an e-mail from Alerts and you need to click the link to accept the terms of use You’ll receive a 2nd e-mail from Alerts once you accept the terms of use.  This contains the URL and PINID for your sign-up page.  You will want to copy this HTML into the HTML container part.  Here's an example of the HTML that you'll want to paste into the HTML container (use your PINID and make sure it points to your blog):<p align=center><a href="http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts/login.do?PINID=xxxxxxx&returnURL=http://spaces.msn.com/members/windowslivealerts/"><img src="