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Microsoft migrating 30 million Live Spaces blogs to WordPress.com
Microsoft has just announced that it's teaming up with WordPress on Live Spaces blogs. According to Microsoft, Windows Live Spaces has 30 million active users -- so this is a significant boost for the WordPress.com platform.
Some of the highlights of the migration:
- Microsoft will redirect all Spaces URLs to WordPress.com, so users won't lose any visitors.
- Spaces is going to be shut down in March.
- Migration should be almost painless -- posts, media, comments, and links will all be moved automatically.
Personally, I think it's very nice to see Microsoft teaming up with another company like this. This is a fairly major move, and it does require some guts -- though it now allows Microsoft to focus on software for blogging (Live Writer) instead of worrying about maintaining a blog platform.
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsQuikboySep 27th 2010 8:42PM
This really, honestly sucks! I know with years of neglect, you couldn't expect MS to really give much better efforts at Live Spaces, but with the transformation of Bing (Live Search), IE, MSN and other web stuff, I was hoping they'd bring it on with Live Spaces too.
I had one ever since it first started as MSN Spaces. It was a very lively community, where actual team members worked on the site often, and they'd share the coolest Spaces of the week, or awesome posts, and users would actualy comment and stuff and connect. Plus, it was actually one of the central parts of the whole MSN/Live experience.
Then it became Windows Live and it kept going that way for a year or two. Then the Spaces team would stop updating the main user central page, little if any new features evolved over the years, people started posting less, and the big kicker was the amount of spam comments that rose sharply, which were hard to track down and delete them all individually. Most active members just got fed up and called it quits or just left it hanging as those time stopped.
I was hoping that maybe Microsoft was keeping it for this long, because they might have big plans in place to give it a massive update and overhaul and make it the #1 spot for a blogging community. Guess not. It makes me really disappointed and sometimes mad when MS makes cool stuff with a lot of potential, but don't go all the way and then neglect and eventually kill it off, as well as loyal and avid users of it.
I'd like to wish that this is a joke, like the GOG.com thing, but it's very unlikely.
BradSep 27th 2010 9:32PM
Wordpress.com rocks though it was the best choice.
Stephen ASep 28th 2010 5:14AM
"though it now allows Microsoft to focus on software for blogging (Live Writer) instead of worrying about maintaining a blog platform"
Surely the only reason Microsoft maintained products like LIve Writer was to encourage users over to sites like Live Spaces. It was the default when you first ran Live Writer.
I'd say this move puts Live Writer under threat rather than being positive for it.
BrianSep 28th 2010 8:32AM
I have to agree with you, but Microsoft cull services so often you really cannot trust them to run anything for more than a few years before it gets ignored and dies.
Steve McQuarrieOct 2nd 2010 10:38AM
Why! Why! Why! Have they done this. I loved Windows Live Spaces, I made my space a fun place to visit for everyone of any age. I had videos, games and generally a load of fun stuff and information I was able to share with the world, and it was all free brilliant. Until one day last week when I went to post something new I couldn't! I could not even access my space. Windows Live Writer Failed. I wasn't happy, I was forced to move all my posts to this thing called "WordPress" that I'd never heard of. I was expecting it to look the same if not similar to my windows live space, how dissapointed was I. After waiting about an hour for this change to happen. allmost everything had gone, no games, no animations, posts pointing to places that didn't excist anymore. Why do this? And without a warning not even an email saying this was going to happen. I'm very very unhappy about this not to mention how unhappy my visitors will be when they are pointed to a boring blog page. I have blog pages I use with other people. Spaces was more than that for me and my visitors, It was a fun and funny space to visit. The site was alive, exciting and colourful. Now all thats been taken from my visitors and from me. WHY!?