Today's Windows Live announcement means that users will now be able to connect their social network activity from 20 new partners including Facebook, Digg, and SmugMug. The end result is a Windows Live, "What's New" activity feed filled with information about what your friends are doing from across the Web.
In total, Microsoft's social aggregation offering now includes 30 sites and services for pulling and pushing content. The list includes a myriad of hot social sites and blog platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, TypePad, Photobucket, Digg, and SmugMug. Plus, three of the new supported services — MySpace, hi5, Tagged — allow users to connect their contact lists between those sites and Windows Live.
Adding new services can be accomplished by visiting your profile page, selecting the appropriate services, and adding respective site credentials. You can also add all the activities you'd like to share, and specify with whom. Privacy options are based on activity, and allow for items to be shared with everyone, shared with your network, or shared with select individuals. Because new activity appears across Windows Live products (like Hotmail), you'll want to carefully select which audiences can see which activities.