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Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

Summary: It's been rumored for a while now that Microsoft was going to pull the plug on the blogging platform component of Windows Live (known as Windows Live Spaces). On September 27, company officials made that decision official and public.

Mary Jo Foley

By for All About Microsoft |

It's been rumored for a while now that Microsoft was going to pull the plug on the blogging platform component of Windows Live (known as Windows Live Spaces). On September 27, company officials made that decision official and public.

Microsoft officials announced that Microsoft is partnering with Wordpress to try to help users who've set up Windows Live blogs using Spaces to move to the Wordpress platform. At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Microsoft and WordPress announced that WordPress is becoming "the default blogging platform of choice for all new and existing Windows Live customers."

Microsoft officials promised the Windows Live Spaces migration to WordPress.com -- which will be available as of today, September 27, will be "automated and easy, ensuring the movement of blog content, integrated media, comments and links is simple."

The actual mechanism for moving Spaces blogs over to WordPress blogs is an importer created by WordPress. Going forward, new Windows Live users also will be offered a WordPress.com blog if/when they choose to create a new blog.

Windows Live Spaces users will have six months to move off the Spaces platform to WordPress or some other alternative. I've asked Microsoft what will happen to their blogs if they don't do so. No word back so far.

Update: Here are a couple of answers from a Microsoft spokesperson to my "what if" questions:

Q: What if user doesn’t make the six-month transition cutoff? Is his/her Spaces blog automatically turned into a Wordpress blog? A: There will be several communications to Spaces users in the six months to prompt them to migrate their content to Wordpress or save their content to their PC. If they don't take either action during the six months, their content will be removed when Spaces is decommissioned.

Q: What if a user wants to use something other than WordPress. Will he/she have an option and any kind of migration tools from Microsoft? A: If Spaces users chose not to migrate to WordPress.com, they can save their content and then post to the blogging platform of their choice.

WordPress officials noted that they've added support for Messenger Connect as a Publicize option on WordPress, "which enables you to automatically share updates to your WordPress.com blog with your friends who use Windows Live Messenger."

Slowly, but surely, the family of the many services offered under the "Windows Live" banner is getting smaller and more definable.

Update 2: For those worried about the future of Microsoft's Windows Live Writer blogging tool/app, Microsoft officials say there is no plan to phase it out and it will remain part of the Windows Live family.

Topics: Browser, Microsoft, Operating Systems, Software, Windows

About

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    Almost seems like Microsoft is scaling back on the services that didn't gain great traction, and pushing innovations on the ones that did. Kind of interesting to remember the Live buildup in the first place, tons of projects, some dying of slowly, some living on, and it appears some being killed after long term success doesn't seem possible.

    Good on ya Microsoft for pushing forward + at least offering a decent [supposedly] transition to an alturnative service.
    clindhartsen
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

      @clindhartsen

      I think Microsoft is taking an interesting approach of inter-linking social web sites through it's live platform. It's current integration with facebook, My Space, etc. is quite interesting and I think pointing the way forward. Esp. with the looming launch of WP7.

      I think (hope) Microsoft is realizing that they don't need to host the content for them to leverage it.
      mikefarinha
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

        @mikefarinha One can hope. If I remember what has been said about Windows Phone 7, you initially tie it to a Windows Live account, and then it'll load in the services you have tied to it as well. Don't quote me on that, but I believe that's correct.

        Long term, that could mean that you tie your Live.com address to Facebook, YouTube, maybe Twitter eventually, plus a handful of oher services, and the only thing you'd have to do is sign in once (username@live.com / password) and everything would be signed in automatically.
        clindhartsen
        Reply Vote

      • Reply

        @mikefarinha I'm still trying to figure out What Live Spaces is supposed to be...

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        athel-stan
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      • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

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    • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

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    • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

      @clindhartsen how would you get hold of the Windows source if you lived in China? Are you referring to Microsoft's licensing of the source of Windows to the Chinese government? If so, then using your logic, everyone in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, US, Japan and many other countries also have full access to the source of Windows since those countries also license the source of Windows (along with several other MS products).<br><br>And FWIW, just because the Linux source is available doesn't mean that it is of high quality, defect-free or secure. The<br>"many eyes" have frequently failed to identify pretty major issues with Linux over the years. <a href="http://www.arabaoyunlarimiz.gen.tr/"><b>araba oyunu</b></a>
      Arabalar
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  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    Six months to migrate to Wordpress, so 6 months to see the final version of Windows Live 2011 as Wordpress will be the standard blogging service????
    bartw78
    Reply Vote

  • To be honest

    I'm still trying to figure out What Live Spaces is supposed to be...
    The one and only, Cylon Centurion
    Reply Vote

    • you're not the only one...

      @Cylon Centurion 0005

      ...in fact, I forgot this existed until i saw this article.
      mibjr
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    Sounds like a good move; bring together best-in-class applications, smooth out the integration experience, and encourage the eco-system to build around that. With the ability for app devs to plug into the Google Apps eco-system the only thing that seems missing is opening up the platform a little bit more for developers.
    colinbo
    Reply Vote

  • I still say that MSN, Windows Live ...

    ... and MS' other web properties, should be little more than drivers of users into subscription services, made available through Windows application experiences. (Similar to the Wired and Times magazine iPad experiences.) Make all of these things available via Zune (tiered price) subscription services. I believe with the exception of search, MS should stop trying to compete and make money directly from the web. MS should be preoccupied with setting up networks, and creating ever more compelling experiences against these networks (supporting its various front end platforms in the process), and making them available at reasonable rates. E.g. I think MS should create a global educational network, that goes way beyond email and basic collaboration, where developers can create their own apps and services, and drive innovation and value for the network.
    P. Douglas
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    Good news I always liked Wordpress and as a Microsoft supporter I never wanted to use live spaces.
    ClickHouse
    Reply Vote

  • MS wastes too much time & resources on...

    "The next big thing (thought of by someone else)" vs. concentrating on its core products (where it makes money) and making them the best they can possibly be.

    -M
    betelgeuse68
    Reply Vote

    • Seriously dude...

      @betelgeuse68
      You really should pay attention to what's going on in the world before you start posting FUD that makes you look clueless.

      1.) Windows 7 and Office 2010 are probably the best recieved releases of Windows and Office ever. Better than Vista, XP when it debuted, and so forth going back to Win 95.

      2.) Windows 7 is also probably the most bug free version of Windows (at launch) ever. Not that it's 100% bug free - nothing EVER is.

      3.) Microsoft is a big enough company that it can keep it's core products rocking AND still have resources left over to explore opportunities in other markets like web services (Live Spaces), music (Zune), gaming and so forth.
      Wolfie2K3
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    Oh wow, what they have to go and do that for.

    web-privacy.it.tc
    RungHee
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    For the people that I knew who were actually blogging on Live Spaces, they've since moved on to Wordpress or Facebook. I'm sure there's someone out there who will really be impacted by this, but, for myself and those few I know who actually used it this is just a logical move for MS to kill it.
    hysonmb
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    A real "Adding by Subtracting" move.
    anilmujagic
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    I like MS but my problem with them is they never finish what they start for the most part. The next thing they will be killing off is Sky Drive because nobody uses it...I don't really because it has a 50MB upload cap (last time I checked) and they are not smart enough to know that hurts them.

    Should I buy a Windows Phone 7 in the Zune platform...how long will that be around before never finishing it and then kill it.
    EricVM
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft makes it official: Windows Live is no longer a blogging platform

    I only use Live Spaces for making notes and communicating information to people. To me it is not really blog exactly but IS very convenient (was very convenient). One of the good things is that it is not very 'social networky' so I only get a few people wanting to be my 'friend'. I.e. wanting to sell me porn or something. Anyways, we'll see.
    drdavidgreen@...
    Reply Vote
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