Looking to schedule an event for your team or company? Maybe you are in charge of an upcoming family reunion, birthday or wedding. Microsoft’s new Events Planning tool might be for you.

On October 11th Microsoft launched a new service via Windows Live that lets anyone create a customized and personalized web page for an event. Users can choose from base templates and then customize them by adding photographs, videos, and stories via blog postings.  Built on the Windows Live Spaces framework the new service appears to hit a market that needs help, yet the new service from Microsoft has yet to be tested outside the company.

In researching the Events Planning tool, Microsoft used customer feedback, feature requests and Hotmail research to determine the value of the solution. In an eWeek article manager Jay Fluegel said that “a large proportion of mail between members was about planning a particular event, which reinforced the direct feedback about wanting more ways to connect with people they care about”.

More About the Social Events Planning Service
Windows Live Events enables customers to create web sites based on more than 100 templates, depending on the type of event the user is looking to create. Users can invite anyone as long as they have a valid email address. Knowing that not everyone is using Microsoft technologies, the team has made the Events Service compatible with competing calendaring services. Users invited to an event do not need to have a Windows Live ID unless they want to upload content. Since it is a free service from Microsoft there will be “unobtrusive” banners associated with the service, however the space below common header is that of the user, the Spaces team has worked hard to make that content below the banner completely controllable by the event owner.

Event websites on the Events Planning service does not have to take place before an event, users are able to create a web site for events that have already taken place. The allows individuals to create sites post-event allowing attendees to share stories, pictures and videos from the event. This is a key difference in Microsoft Event Planning from services such as Evite. Fluegel said “the differentiator was the focus on the sharing that takes place after an event has occurred”.

Ownership of an Event
Owner’s of an event will be able to delete photographs and comments on an event site, similar to Spaces today. Events sites will have monthly upload limits as Spaces does today but it can be reset the next month. This ensures that the service will continue to run efficiently.

If you have an upcoming event taking place maybe the Microsoft Live Events Service is for you. More information can be found at http://home.services.spaces.live.com/events/