Everyone who uses it should have heard about it, they emailed everyone, plus it was pretty big news if you read any tech sites. But it's only the messenger service that's being shut down. And it's only due to the fact they own Skype now, so it's absolutely pointless running two systems, especially as Skype is far superior in every way. But yeah your email etc. will all continue to function as normal.
Personally, everyone I actually care to talk to switched to Skype long ago, or I speak to on Facebook messenger, so the fact WLM is now merged with Skype makes barely any difference to me.
As for GFWL I don't know, but they really should shut that piece of shit down. Or at least make it exactly the same as Xbox Live and fix it's more retarded 'features'. They are changing Xbox Live's communications service to Skype so I'm wondering if GFWL might eventually become like that.