When we first discovered that all Xbox Live Avatars have a unique URL, we figrued that it wouldn't be long before Microsoft opened them up for use as, um, avatars in web applications like Facebook. It looks like that day is upon us, as Microsoft has opened a new section of Xbox.com entitled Free Your Avatar. The site allows Xbox Live users to pose their Avatars (or anyone's Avatar, so long as you know their Gamertag) in front of various backgrounds and cap things off with some text. The tool is fairly limited though. For example we would love some different poses -- the current post is just awful for one's posture -- and some more backgrounds. The ability to have more than one line of text would be nice too.

Microsoft is also running a contest in which lots of prizes -- like a 42" TV and an Xbox 360 Elite -- are being given away. The only requirement is uploading an Avatar image as your profile picture on MySpace, Facebook, or Bebo and describing why it represents you. For the moment, the Free Your Avatar page is only up on the UK version of Xbox.com, so we're guessing the contest is only for the UK (although, at the moment, there is no such stipulation in the official rules).

[Via Xbox Avatar Life]