After the closing date, you will not be able to browse nor open any of the existing spaces anymore. If you had a Windows Live Space, you cannot access its contents after this date.

You want to backup your data? Remember that until March 16, you can still make use of the Windows Live + WordPress.com partnership and transfer all your Spaces content to a fresh WordPress.com blog. Find transfer instructions at Windows Live.

Of course it is also possible to download the contents from Windows Live Spaces, and it is as easy as transferring it.

What you can expect by moving to WordPress.com

All of your posts, comments, and links will transfer, and you will have the option to share your blogging updates with your Messenger friends.

On WordPress.com, you’ll get tools to help you track how your blog is doing and who’s visiting. You’ll get tagging that enables people to find you, and for you to find like-minded people. It includes great blog comment functionality, and trackback spam prevention to help keep your experience clean. Check out more.

Thanks for using Windows Live and we hope you enjoy the new blogging experience.

Sincerely,

The Windows Live team

I’m sure that in the past weeks, you have noted a message like the following appear when you tried to access your Space:

This message gives you the overview about your possible options. You may also download your posts and images from your Space in order to avoid losing your stuff when Spaces closes in spring.

Here are some FAQs you should check before migrating your Windows Live Spaces to WordPress!

1. What will happen to my old blog posts?

   We will move all your old blog posts for you. They will retain all their text and media content and will be listed in order just like they were on your Space.

2. Will my blog posts be in order by date and time?

   Yes your blog posts will be arranged in order, just the way you published them.

3. What will happen to my draft blog posts?

   Your draft blog posts will not move with you. Please publish or back them up before moving your content.

4. What will happen to comments? Will I know who the comments came from?

   Yes your comments will move with you and we’ll also try to remove any spam. The comments with have date and time associated with them as well as the URL of the user who posted them.

5. What about my photos? Can I move my photos?

   If you integrated your photos or any other media into your blog they will move right with your posts. However if you used the photos module, that will not move. You can always add links to specific albums to old blog posts without changing their published date and time. And your current albums won’t change their home – you’ll continue to be able to organize, edit and share them with your friends and family via Windows Live.

6. What will happen to my theme?

   You will need to select a new one from the almost 100 WordPress.com offers.

7. What will happen to the various modules and gadgets I have?

   Gadgets won’t be available to move. WordPress.com offers a Widgets Feature if you’d like to add any Widgets.

8. What will happen to my lists, guestbook and notes?

   Sorry but we won’t be able to move those since most blogging services do not offer that functionality. We recommend for you to copy and paste it to a local document or email to keep.

9. How will visitors find my blog if I move it?

   All your old URLs will redirect – so if visitors land on any of your old links – in profile, directly saved or from another page, they’ll be redirected to your new account.

10. Will all my old links continue to work – for my blog, for any individual articles and reference links within my blogs?

    Yes, anyone landing on your old blog link or individual article links will be redirected to the right plan on your WordPress.com blog. If you referenced any other Spaces not belonging to you, that will depend on whether that blog is active and will be moved before March of 2011.

11. What if I have a private blog – will my blog now be public?

    No, we’ll move your blog based on your old settings. During and after your move you will be able to change that option.

12. I have a private blog, will my friends need to do anything to view it?

    For private blogs you have two options – you can either share it back to your Messenger Friends or you can invite individual friends to share with. In the latter case your friends will need to set up a WordPress.com account if they don’t already have one – should take less than a minute.

13. What will happen to my custom URL?

    Your old custom URL will redirect your blog to your new location. You can choose to keep the name of your old blog on WordPress.com if it’s available.

14. Can I add a new blog to my existing WordPress.com account?

    Yes. Just select the add a new blog option to your existing account during the move process.

15. Can I merge my blog posts with an existing WordPress.com blog?

    Yes. Your posts will be merged according to date of publish. You can select a blog to add to when you move your blog.

16. Can I move and download my blog?

    Yes you can but you should download your blog first and then move it if you want a human readable form. Alternatively you could move it to WordPress.com and then export an XML version of your blog.

According to these internal messages, Microsoft expects only 1% of all these 30 million Spaces users to switch over to WordPress. The major part of the user base is inactive since a long time.

It is not uncommon for companies of any size to tune figures like this. For externals, there is no way to find out whether the statistics are indeed correct. However, this exaggeration had noticeable impact on the news publishing regarding the Microsoft-WordPress.com deal.

Currently, WordPress.com is running some 14 million blogs. Some 30 million additional ones would not only mean that Automattic would have to extend its server capacities massively, but also make WordPress.com the market leader in blogging.

However, Microsoft’s mails dated to the 28 September, there are only some 300,000 active blogs at Windows Live Spaces. For WordPress, that’s only but a minimum increase — no new servers needed, it seems…

Interesting as well: Microsoft managers thought about whether it would be a good thing to lose too many clients to a Linux platform. In contrast to Windows Live Spaces running on Windows Server with IIS, WordPress is using nginx with PHP, on Linux.

A Microsoft employee declared he is hoping for WordPress to switch over to Microsoft’s cloud architecture Windows Azure. However, a spokesperson at Microsoft stated to Betanews.com:

There are approximately 30 million users on Windows Live Spaces that includes both authors and their visitors. About 7 million are authors — this means Spaces users, most of whom have a blog and regularly update their content. We expect a significant customer set will choose the great blogging experience offered by WordPress.com.

• Spaces was dead to me anyway; but with the popularity of WP Blogs, it could gain some strengths now.
  — George Saadé, Lebanon; mynetx.net
  
• The migration to WordPress.com could be cool — I like it. It is more customizable than Spaces ever were…
  — Maxime Rastello, France; wikikou.fr
  
• I think it is about the best thing they could have done. Obviously the Windows Live team gave up on Spaces long ago, and they could just have pulled the plug.
  — Kip Kniskern, United States; LiveSide.net
  
• Why not? I mean, WordPress is one of the best blog clients platforms… That was the good thing. The bad thing is that with Windows Live Spaces, everybody with a Windows Live ID could create a blog easily.
  — George Nirakis, Greece; mynetx.net

• I find the migration news great! Why? Because I find WordPress great and consider it well done that Windows Live decided to team up with this partner.
  — Nico Plusqua, Germany; Windows Live Buddyscout Team
  
• I’d say it is a good move. Live Spaces never caught on, to be honest. Migrating to WordPress would not leace Spaces users stranded, while at the same time giving Microsoft the chance to refocus their resources. Personally i think its a Win Win situation for both sides (Microsoft and the users).
  — Lance Manasse, United Kingdom; former Windows Live Butterfly
  
• I think it’s the best solution with the least investment that Microsoft can offer its userbase. Microsoft has conceded that they cannot provide a best-in-class service in the arena of blogging, so I applaud their decision to help users migrate to a platform that is an industry leader.

  Given there are a myriad ways to interact with friends and share content (Messenger Social, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), I think that blogging no longer needs to be a central component of the average user’s social experience. Of course, blogging will continue to be extremely popular among a certain niche of users, but it no longer drives the social experience the way it did in Spaces halcyon days.

  That said, I’m going to miss Spaces. It was one of the reasons I joined Windows Live in the first place.
  — Greg Edwards, United States; Windows Live MVP

• By choosing an established platform rather than attempting to develop their own, Microsoft has made a smart move, both financially and from the users’ standpoint.
  — Brian Donohue, Canada; Neowin.net

A good move, says the common opinion. Would you, on your turn, agree? What do you think?

Windows Live Spaces is migrating to WordPress.com. This is what Dharmesh Mehta, Director Windows Live Product Management, has announced in the Windows Live team blog. All existing 30 million spaces can be migrated without hassle in an automated process. Dharmesh states:

Windows Live and WordPress.com have worked together to build a simple way to move your blog posts, comments, and integrated photos right over to WordPress.com and start taking advantage of all their new features. And we’ll also redirect all your old Spaces URLs to your new blog, so you don’t lose any visitors along the way.

Until now, Windows Live Spaces has had a mere shadow existance. Despite the Windows Live team working to reduce clutter and ease the usage, Spaces have often suffered from Spam attacks and a user interface hard to use. On the other hand, WordPress is the perfect blogging platform for just anybody — mynetx.net is powered by its self-hosted version as well.

Paul Kim, VP User Growth for Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, welcomes you as Spaces users:

We’re excited to announce that WordPress.com is now the default blogging platform for Windows Live Spaces users. [...]

Over a six month period, beginning today, Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to move their blogs to WordPress.com. To make this possible, we’ve created a brand new importer for Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com. New Windows Live users will also be offered a WordPress.com blog when they choose to create a new blog.

Originally launched as MSN Spaces in 2004, Windows Live Spaces come to their end until March 2011. It is more than just another end of life for a Windows Live service. In the past weeks, we have seen passing away Alerts, as well as the emergency platform Microsoft Vine. I feel proud for the Windows Live team to team up with WordPress.com. It simply provides such a good platform for you as users.

Soon, I’ll give more information about how to migrate your existing Spaces blog to a WordPress.com one. What do you think about this news?

Trackbacks are used primarily to facilitate communication between blogs; if a blogger writes a new entry commenting on, or referring to, an entry found at another blog, and both blogging tools support the TrackBack protocol, then the commenting blogger can notify the other blog with a “TrackBack ping”; the receiving blog will typically display summaries of, and links to, all the commenting entries below the original entry. This allows for conversations spanning several blogs that readers can easily follow.

This is the Wikipedia definition of trackbacks. Windows Live Spaces supports receiving trackbacks for blog posts, and so I am sending them when I publish a post about one of the entries e.g. in the Windows Live Wire blog. However, I noticed that the trackbacks are not always properly received in Spaces; I am experiencing this is a permanent issue and trackbacks are only now and then received.

Have a look at these two screenshots I took, comparing the WordPress admin dashboard with the originating post at Windows Live Spaces.