Messenger becomes your social dashboard

Do you ever find that your sunnies, mobile phone and house keys all end up on the dashboard of your car? They're completely unrelated items with entirely different functions yet because you need them at the drop of a hat you put them in a place that makes them easily accessible.

Well Messenger 2011 has taken that theory and applied it to your online social networks. We've created what we call a "social dashboard" and just like the dashboard in your car, it's a place to see and access all your things the moment you need them.

Let's say you are on Messenger happily chatting away when a friend updates their Facebook status together with some new photos they've just uploaded. You no longer need to have two windows open just so you can stay on top of things.

Messenger 2011 brings your social updates from more than 80 online partners (including Facebook and MySpace) from across the Web, and delivers them to your Messenger interface. What's better is you can choose whose updates you see, so you won't get bogged down with links and photos from people you don't want to hear from.

It starts right from when you download the new Messenger 2011. You'll get an option to connect Messenger to your other social services.

Once you've done that, you can customise what updates you want to see and who you want to see them from.

That's when the power of the new Messenger 2011 really starts to come to life. Let's say you want to comment on a friend's Facebook message or send them a quick message, you can now do exactly that right from inside Messenger. It then gets posted back to the origin social platform (in this case it's Facebook) and you can continue with your IM conversations.

Your Messenger social dashboard also brings in feeds from within Hotmail. Your social updates sitting in your inbox are all pushed into Messenger — so the second something happens and you're online, you'll know about it.

The social dashboard experience wouldn't be complete if you couldn't take it with you on the go. All these functions are all built in to the Messenger iPhone app. So if you're on the train to work or in the back seat of a car enduring a long holiday drive, you can IM and get your social updates at the same time — all from your mobile phone.

For some more ideas on how you can use Messenger as your complete social dashboard watch the video below then get the new Messenger 2011 and try it for yourself.