Microsoft Takes On Evite with Windows Live Events

Microsoft took a page from Evite's playbook late Thursday, announcing Windows Live Events, a free event planning service.

The latest free ad-supported addition to the Windows Live family allows the user to send invitations to events much like Evite already offers. The company is also allowing those who may not have a Windows Live ID to respond to invitations.

However, those who decide to use their Live ID would gain access to special features that separates Microsoft's offering from that of Evite.

Recipients of the event invitation would be able to log back onto the site and post pictures, videos, and text afterwards. Users could also choose to embed portions of the site into other social networking services, including MySpace and the like.

Windows Live Events utilizes the infrastructure already in place for Microsoft's Spaces service, and ties into other Live services such as Hotmail or Messenger, or Windows Live Search Maps to plot the location of events.

Since the service is using Spaces as its back-end, Events would be one of the first Live services to launch to the public without a "beta" designation. Microsoft says it is confident that the service works well enough to not require a beta testing period.

Live Events will be launched over the next several days in all of the 56 markets that Spaces currently operates in. At launch, users will have the option to choose from over 100 templates when creating their event invitations.

The new service also follows some updates to the Spaces service itself, which the development team listed in its blog on Thursday.