Windows Phone Series 7 will have single sign in, Windows Phone Series 7 Web site doesn't

[marypcbuk]

What's with the Windows Phone Series 7 marketing ghetto?

Microsoft is pimping a community around Windows Phone 7 Series with forums and the promise of exclusive videos, live chats and swag - but for the first time in a long time, I've had to create a new username and password; I couldn't use Windows Live ID or Facebook Connect or OpenID to sign into this! Er, why? You can still make people set up a profile if you allow sign in via a federated account like Live ID or Facebook or OpenID and you don't make people hate you for giving them another username and password to forget - or to make the same as all their other logins because they can't be bothered. And you get points and status on the site - but there's no bragging rights on other services, unlike Ribbon Hero.

Identity FAIL, Windows Phone team - and viral marketing FAIL

Also, there don't seem to be many Microsoft folk in the discussions yet; there are four pages of comments from people asking whether the platform has multi-tasking, arguing about why you would need it, demanding that it has multi-tasking... there isn't one official reply from Microsoft in there, although someone who describes themself as 'International Partner Account Manager at Microsoft Partner in the Netherlands' (and an iPhone user) says it won't have multi-tasking. Are they an official spokesperson? Their profile doesn't say so. But then neither does the profile of Marshall the moderator - there is no way to tell quickly who's speculating and who's conveying official information.

So engagement FAIL and identity FAIL together...

And my picture over there - which I had to add to my profile by uploading, not by linking to any of my existing networks, has my head cut off because I can't choose how the thumbnail is made. This is very 2007!