Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Windows Live Spaces Bloggers: WordPress Is Nigh

In one of those decisions that seem sorta-inevitable in retrospect, Microsoft has decided to transfer its users' Windows Live Spaces blogs to newly minted partner WordPress.com.

"This morning in San Francisco at TechCrunch Disrupt, Windows Live and WordPress.com announced that WordPress.com will become the default blogging platform of choice for all new and existing Windows Live customers," a Microsoft spokesperson e-mailed me this morning. "Windows Live Spaces users will have the option starting Monday, Sept. 27, 2010, to migrate their blogs to WordPress.com."

That spokesperson promised that migrating to WordPress will be "automated and easy." Users visiting their Spaces will see a user-friendly interface for transferring their assets to the new blogging platform. For those with a tendency to procrastinate: Microsoft's reportedly allowing a six-month window for the transition before it vaporizes Spaces and any remaining content.

For its part, Microsoft is framing the WordPress partnership as the path of least resistance.

"WordPress powers over 8.5 percent of the Web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is seen by over 250 million people each month," Dharmesh Mehta, director of Windows Live Product Management, wrote in a Sept. 27 posting on The Windows Blog. "So rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, we decided the best thing we could do for our customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com."

Microsoft and WordPress have been linking their services in other ways. Via Messenger Connect, users can push their WordPress.com postings (re: scary rants) on to their Messenger friends. And with the release of Windows Live Essentials 2011, Windows Live Writer will have the ability to access WordPress as a default blogging solution.


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