If you use Windows Live Messenger, there's a good chance you've heard of Mess.be, the Messenger customization community. Last week, "dwergs" from Mess sent me an email, expressing interest in Twessenger after reading my initial post about it. I think he was also the first person to try it out after I released it.

Then, Twessenger made it to the front page of Mess.be yesterday:

Here's something cool for the 24/7 Messer, something I've been waiting for to be developed since a couple of weeks. If you're anything like me and stay logged in continuously for days and days -even when you're out- you sometimes read instant messages like "Are you there?" or "Where are you going tonight?" only when you return. Not everyone's always strict with his or her Messenger status, you see. But what if you could alter your Personal Status Message from any remote location with the use of your mobile phone? Enter: Twessenger, an add-in for Windows Live Messenger written by Kunal Kundaje.

Twessenger makes use of the popular Twitter service, which allows its users to let others know what exactly they're up to. So all you need to do is sign up for an account at Twitter, make sure the "Protect my updates" box in your profile account is unticked and find your Twitter ID (it's the six digit number in your Flash badge code or at the end of the Favorites URL).

Then download and install Twessenger, add the add-in to Windows Live Messenger, and enter your Twitter ID in its settings (refer to the README.TXT inside the ZIP-file for all you need to know, really). Finally, when you enable it you'll see your Personal Status Message turn into your latest "Tweet" (updates appear in about a minute). You can add Tweets from your phone's browser, or if you do not have a data subscription you can text them to a UK or US-based phone number.

You can use this for realtime presence management, current location indication or just for sharing random thoughts and impressions with your contacts.

Thanks, dwergs!

According to their stats, it's been downloaded 175 times (at the time of this post) in the first ~14 hours. That's not including direct downloads from the Twessenger page. :)

I've received some nice feedback so far, and I'm glad people are finding this useful. Feel free to continue sending in your comments, suggestions, and any bugs that you may find using the contact form.