In a recent blog post from the IE Team, they discussed how pinned sites work in Windows 8. Those of you already using Windows 8 will know that pinning sites or tradition apps results in a pretty bland tile with just the IE logo. If you’re an application developer, you can add some code to improve this.
Facebook is one example of a site that has added such code and if you pin Facebook now, the Facebook logo is now placed on the tile. Personally I’d like to see web developers have control over the entire tile, rather than just a small 32×32 area with an .ico file.
In Windows 7 and IE9, Microsoft positioned websites on the same level as desktop applications with a simple pinning to the taskbar. By limiting tile designs for web developers, it again distances website from applications, this time its metro apps. The good news is, those developers who created IE9 jump lists, don’t need to do any work, with those lists now presented in the metro-style when accessed through an pinned site in IE10 metro.
Another important feature of pinned sites in Windows 8 is the ability to push notifications to the tile. These display as simple numbers in the bottom right of the tile which matches the notification styling of Metro apps.
More information @ IEBlog