Goodbye, beta. The assortment of communication and other web services linked together under the Windows Live name offers a single sign-on to access all of its products.

The product formerly known as Windows Live Folders has been renamed and opened up to people in the US, UK, and India.

Nielsen/Netratings has just started ranking Web brands.  It does this by measuring “engagement” by total minutes spent with the brand and unique audience.  Brands that had a large unique audience spending a long time engaged had the highest score.  AOL came in first, followed by Yahoo!, then MSN/Windows Live, with Google coming in fifth.

Windows Live is best known as a collection of end-user offerings – like Messenger, Spaces, Search, Hotmail and a whole bunch more.  It’s also in the process of evolving into a platform.  Koji Kato and Danny Thorpe, from the Windows Live platform team, discuss with Catherine Heller a Windows Live Technical Evangelist on Channel 9 their views on internet software and what it means to “componentize” Windows Live.

The opening of Windows Live Hotmail also comes with a push from Microsoft as the company tries to sway more advertisers to the product.

LiveSide reveals the Windows Live Dashboard, a program that acts as a center for Windows Live desktop applications.

The formerly-named MSN Book Search appears to have a new name to go along with its online debut.

Niall Kennedy was one of a few people to depart blog search site Technorati in recent months, and now he has announced he will join the Windows Live team.

LiveSide reports that Windows Live Product Search is in development. Much like Froogle, WLPS would have price comparisons, and add Windows Live staples like detail sliders to hide/show metadata.

MSN Spaces has added a Windows Live Expo module, so people can list their Expo items on their Space.

LiveSide points to the MSN Spaces homepage, which now says:

The LiveSide blog says MSN Spaces users have reported seeing two modules called “Questions Asked” and “Questions Answered”, and that they are related to a yet-to-be-announced Windows Live service.

A couple of new services associated with Microsoft’s Windows Live online platform offer competition to Google Video and Yahoo Answers.

Via Digg, found this video comparing the load times of Google.com and Live.com (and making fun of them, and Brokeback Mountain).

Microsoft is replacing MSN Search with a new search interface, Windows Live.

Ray Ozzie gave a talk at ETech today, and he discussed an idea he had called a “live clipboard”.