First glance at Microsoft Live

All I have to say about the initial set of gadgets- they aren't leaving me in awe of what the future will hold.

I'm still trying to figure out where everything is going with this, and by the sounds of it I'm not alone. There's a lot of talk about unification, networks and information. This is all great, but from the samples all I'm seeing is a unified marketing campaign.

Remember- it's all about the platform. In this case, the API is so much more than just your desktop.

What I want to see out of Live-

• An email API worthy of Exchange- push notifications of new messages. Can be subscribed to by gadgets of any making, including my cellphone.
• User storage on a centralized server- not just email data, but absolutely anything a gadget wants to persist over time. Todo list, calendar, vacation photos, whatever. Live Favorites would be a trivial use of the storage.
• User permissions (and this is BIG). For any of my data, I want the ability to grant others access to read or write. Per user. I want to share my calendar to my friends and give the ability to modify it to others.
• A Windows Media Center gadget that allows you to edit the schedule, start recording and such while at work. Let me give permissions to others to browse or edit the schedule.
• A Windows Media Extender gadget that allows me to treat the extender just like Windows Media Player from anywhere.
  

The launch of Microsoft Live seems somewhat botched (and I even missed the network problems everyone is talking about)- the message is muddled and there's lots of talk but not much inspiration.

I'm looking forward to seeing where stuff goes, there are plenty of opportunities but I'm not sure if they're all available right now.

ps- where's the SDK? The platform was announced, but I can't find any SDK! There's even a gadget competition with a getting started page. Any link to the SDK? Nope.

ps^2 will Windows Messenger Live ACTUALLY let people share files? And actually have them make it across the network? I can only hope. It's way past time for this. The FTP specification was published in 1973! Windows Messenger is not alone here, everyone should be ashamed.