The Xbox tab feature on Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger), which I remember had existed a while back but never tried, has returned, based on Major Nelson’s post yesterday. After a little difficulty getting it to work, and the resulting troubleshooting comment I posted, it was a fully functional tab. While this is still pretty basic — Xbox news on top and scroll down to see a compact, yet fully clickable, version of the friends list you have on Xbox.com — I hope this is just a taste of the type of cross-functionality that we’ll see from Live Anywhere (Gamasutra: “Q&A: Chris Early Breaks Down Microsoft Live Anywhere”) or whatever else. At least during the workday, I can just scroll to the tab to see who is online (especially across different time zones) during the day and what they are up to. It’s nothing beyond mere curiosity, but I could see the potential in sending or receiving game invites over Messenger, especially if with one click it launches, say the Shadowrun session or whichever other Windows Live game.