Windows Live Messenger Now Playing Plugin

The title says it all! Windows Live Messenger Now Playing Plugin is a plugin for Winamp, foobar2000 and YME that allows you to share over Microsoft’s Live Messenger the details on the songs you are currently listening to. This information is displayed as your status, right next to your name in your contacts list.

The application requires that you have installed both one of the supported media players and Windows Live Messenger. It installs with very little user input and allows the instant messaging application to retrieve information on the songs you are listening to. We tested it with Winamp and after the installation, a Live Messenger section appeared in the Preferences window.

That’s where you can make use of the plugin's capabilities. After installation, the plugin is already enabled so there is no need for further adjustments. You should, however, check if the “Show information about the song I'm listening to” in the Personal section of Live Messenger's Options window is already checked. If not, enable the option and start sharing the “Now playing” information with your friends.

Windows Live Messenger Now Playing Plugin has full Advanced Title Formatting support, thus enabling you to get control on the metadata you are displaying over your IM status. By default, it displays the song first and then the artist, but you can easily change this order by adjusting the formatting parameters. Moreover, you can choose to display album and rating information as well.

Another benefit available in the application is that it filters and optionally disables the video metadata sharing. As such, if you use Winamp for video playback, the plugin can stop sharing the “Now Playing” information and resumes it as soon as an audio file plays.

All these, plus the Internet Radio streams support make Windows Live Messenger Now Playing Plugin a reliable tool for sharing with your friends your audio preferences.