Mixing it up in Vegas (baby)

Posted by Dave at 9:43 am

Zopa has been working with Microsoft for a few months now - looking at ways in which we can use some of their new Windows Live services to provide useful tools for our members. As a result of this, they were kind enough to invite me over to Las Vegas the other week to take part in the Mix 07 conference they were hosting.

They describe Mix as being “A 72 hour conversation” - and with a great mix of developers, designers and the odd business person (like me) it was a great few days - with some very interesting Keynote speakers and content.

Zopa’s little moment of fame came when I talked about Zopa and demoed a new service we’re hoping to roll out very shortly (We’ve done our bit - Microsoft need to finish theirs!) - you can see the video below.

The idea is to use your Windows Live contact list (or your Hotmail, or MSN Messenger contacts - they’re all the same thing) in the Zopa ‘Tell a friend’ scheme - so you don’t have to type in everyones email addresses again and again. To do this, we’re using a new service from Microsoft that allows third parties like Zopa to access and amend users contacts (With their permission of course) - and we’re one of the first companies in the world to be doing this.

I also talk a little in the video about future plans for creating ‘friends and family’ networks within Zopa - using additional Microsoft services that they’re planning on releasing over the next 12 months - but the ‘Tell a friend’ piece should be live very soon.

I’d be interested to hear what you think about the new tool - and also what else you think we could be doing with Microsoft.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 9:43 am and is filed under New stuff, Technology, web 2.0, mix07. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.