Messenger Connect leaves beta, makes sharing things with your Live Messenger friends easier

Microsoft's beefed-up social networking integration in Live Messenger isn't all about the Messenger app itself. There's also some back-end social magic going on with publishers and sharing services like ShareThis and AddThis.

Messenger Connect is the Activity Stream glue that ties it all together, and the service finally left beta testing today. Connect makes it easy for content providers and sharing services to add a "share with Messenger" function to their websites and apps -- it works the same way as "tweet this" or "share on Facebook" buttons and widgets do.

Want to integrate Messenger Connect into your own project? Microsoft has made it pretty easy, offering ActivityStrea.ms templates for actions ranging from publishing a status update to sharing a photo, video -- or even that amazing high score you just posted on your favorite Time-Waster.