Not to be left out of the social bookmarking and sharing scene, Microsoft Inc. has developed a tool that allows web page administrators and developers to connect up to Windows Live Messenger (amid myriad other services). The recently golden Windows Messenger Connect provides a set of APIs that allow users to “communicate via Windows Live Messenger, publish activities to the ‘What’s new’ news feed, access a user’s social network, and even store and share photos via Windows Live SkyDrive” (MSDN) from web pages and applications.

According to the Windows Live blog, the response to Windows Connect by social bookmarking widgets has been extremely strong,

Today, we are pleased to announce that Messenger Connect is out of beta and available worldwide. We’ve gotten a great response so far: leading sharing syndicators ShareThis, AddThis, Gigya, and AddToThis have already made the Windows Live sharing badge available on more than 1 million websites (check it out now on Bing).

Enabling websites and applications ease-of-connection to the Windows Live Messenger network, Hotmail e-mail, and other elements of Microsoft’s social networking and bookmarking services will connect Microsoft up to the already existing vast array of sharing across the web. A great deal of people already make extensive use of Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger, but the overall popularity of their other social media remains to be seen.

The new Messenger Connect offers a badges and code that can be easily grafted onto existing web pages—the project out of beta provides an easier check out, making it possible for non-coders to involve themselves; it also makes it easier to adopt and integrate with already existing sites with a vast array of code examples and templates; and the blog post also suggests the newly released code his much more portable and consistent (I guess they’re aiming at developers with this one, telling them that by coming on board they won’t have to leap through too many hoops.)

What can the layman expect out of this? Another button that might start appearing on the social sharing badges on some websites and Windows Live Messenger acting just a little bit more like Twitter when friends sometimes send friends pings to look at websites. This is only one step in a chain for Microsoft Inc. to distinguish themselves—unless this is just their attempt to remain relevant in the social industry, which is constantly innovating and moving outside the reach of many of the computing giants.