MSN Spaces (Beta) launched

MSN Spaces (Beta) launched

(Initially posted on MSN Spaces. Duplicated here.)

Microsoft has launched the beta version of its blogging utility. This time around they are trying to get into the mainstream earlier on in the life of a concept thats caught on very well among the masses. I have been on blogger for over 1.5 years and am most likely going to stick around there. But my curiosity got the better of me and I thought I would spend some time exploring Microsoft's offering. And hence this post - more of a lab work than a serious blog - at least for now. I may have to rethink that in the not so distant future given Microsoft's limitless resources to churn out cool features more rapidly.

I already like the way I can manage my blog layout in Spaces. Microsoft has essentially carried into the tool the features from Sharepoint. And the ability to seamlessly integrate various Microsoft offerings puts Microsoft in a strong position. I can see MSN Chat, Hotmail, Sharepoint, One Note etc come together to give the end user a one-stop shop for "all" communications.

Maybe I should start duplicating my blogger posts here too - will give me an opportunity to play around with this more. Will see. It should'nt be a big effort since both blogger and spaces allows blog posts via email. And Scott Isaacs, the man who built the Rich Text Editor that folks are used to in Hotmail, MSN Groups, etc, has provided some nice tips on the BlogIt tool that should help me move posts easily between blogger and spaces.