Hotmail, which has been upgrading its email service, has now made Facebook chat available to all users, wherever Facebook is available. Hotmail has been rolling this upgrade out on a gradual basis, first becoming available to customers in six regions. A few weeks ago it became available globally through Messenger. It has also added its own chat service - a move it acknowledged follows Gmail's.

Still, though, it may be that the Facebook integration trumps all. Hotmail reports that since announcing the availability of Facebook chat in Messenger worldwide two weeks ago, nearly 2.5 more million people connected their Facebook accounts to Windows Live, bringing the total to over 20 million customers.

Microsoft made major changes to Hotmail last Spring, many of which were aimed at the user workflow, making it easier to sort and organize emails by certain categories, including social media status updates. It also made it easier to send multiple photos, online videos as well as view such content and improved its security features.

Pay Not to Play

The revamping of this still popular email platform should have made marketers happy except it also introduced a change, allowing users to eliminate ads by paying $20 a year.