Yesterday, several Flickr engineers posted news of their layoffs from the Yahoo photo-sharing unit on Twitter, which caused GigaOm’s Om Malik to notice that Flickr architect Cal Henderson was also no longer on its About page.

According to several sources I spoke to, Henderson was actually not laid off at Yahoo, but is leaving to start a new company–in the social-gaming arena, I am told–with Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield.

He and several other of the original core development team for Flickr transitioned out or have been transitioning out for quite some time, sources said.

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Microsoft officially rolled out its next version of its Windows Live Services tonight, with a heavy emphasis on socializing its online offerings and giving users better tools to share all sorts of information from across the Web within them.

Microsoft said the changes–similar to those made by Yahoo and AOL recently–would “begin rolling out to customers in the U.S. over the coming weeks and will be made available globally in 54 countries and in 48 languages by early 2009.”

You might call this the “Facebooking” of Windows Live, which is the brand name for Microsoft’s communications and other related online services aimed at consumers, especially because the much anticipated changes also include a new profile and a “What’s New” feed.

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