Microsoft’s consumer and online division in Europe announced the official release of Messenger TV to 21 countries (Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom).

With Messenger TV, we are bringing two of the most popular activities online – watching videos and chatting on IM. This new service lets you watch MSN Videos with a friend as you have live text conversations about the videos you are watching together. Similar to watching television with your friends, you can watch videos and chat about them as you both see the same video at the same time. But the best way to understand Messenger TV is to visit http://MessengerTV.msn.com or to start the activity while chatting to a friend in Windows Live Messenger. With Messenger TV, you can select any of the videos that are available from MSN Video, build your playlist, and watch the videos with a friend.

With Messenger TV, you can also:

• Blog about the videos you see and like by clicking the “Blog to Spaces” button. Clicking this opens your browser with your Windows Live Spaces blog already written, complete with a thumbnail of the video and a link to watch it so all you have to do is click “publish” from within Spaces to share the video with your friends and family who visit your Spaces site.
• Send e-mail to offline friends with links to the videos you see and like by clicking the “Email Video” button. Clicking this creates a new e-mail in your default e-mail client, such as Windows Live Mail, with a link to the video so all you have to do is click “send” to share the video with your friends and family.
• Search for other videos to watch online by entering a word or two in the “Search for videos online” box. The search results open in your browser with search results displayed on http://video.msn.com where you can continue watching videos that are found as a result of your search.

Nice little gadget to make your Live Messenger activities a bit more fun!

Check out LiveInEurope to stay on track more releases and features