Microsoft discovers blogging
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The beta version of MSN Spaces, web-logging service that enables consumers to create their own personal place on the web has been launched for current users of Hotmail or MSN webmail services.
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An enthusiast site notes that nearly everything in Microsoft's $10 a month MSN Premium offering is available for free via Windows or Windows Live.
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Microsoft&#39;s MSN has introduced a beta version of its new blogging tool, MSN Spaces, which it expects will eventually be supported by advertising.
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It was a matter of minutes before news of Microsoftâs bid jumped from front pages to the vibrant world of technology blogs. Hereâs some of the more interesting thoughts so far.
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For nearly a year I've lived in that relatively new zone called the blogosphere.  I'm now considering moving.  Like many people, I've entertained the idea over the years of writing a book or two; but for now I just enjoy writing an occasional column or story.
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Also: Microsoft plans new BizTalk release for this year. [News.com Extra]
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A new free new tool lets people easily set up personal journals, often called blogs, on the World Wide Web. MSN Spaces, which debuts in test form Thursday, is aimed at home users who want to share things such
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Google Flagging Sites with Too Many Subdomains In a post last week about Robert Scoble visiting the Google Plex and the Windows Live Writer blogging tool, Matt Cutts lent a hint that Google is monitoring and flagging sites which launch too many subdomains at one time. Seems that the Live Windows team is using sub domains [...]
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Microsoft made a belated entrance into the "blogosphere" Thursday, unveiling a free Web-log publishing service one day after Merriam-Webster proclaimed "blog" the word of the year.-Leslie Walker
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New beta of blogging tool Windows Live Writer joins updates to Microsoft's Windows Live instant messaging and e-mail apps.
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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Not only did the word &quot;blog&quot; enter Merriam-Webster&#39;s dictionary this year, but Microsoft is getting on the personalized e-journal bandwagon.
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Before heading over to the Web 2.0 conference at the Palace Hotel in SF this morning, I couldn't resist doing some more digging into alternate user interfaces for news reading based on the NY Times keywords.  One thing I learned the hard way is that when you access the Times site from a script (not through a browser) if you try to read an article that's too old (not sure what the time limit is) it tries to redirect you to a login page (which is pretty pointless considering that there's no human being around to log in). I hit this problem yesterday, and then hit it again this morning, but couldn't remember what the problem was. So by writing it up this time I hope to remember.  No doubt some debunked hack journalist posing as a tech industry mogul will slander me for this, but the asshat asshole has no idea how blogging works, and who the fuck cares what he thinks anyway. "cheesecake"
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I'm back, with a very interesting topic too!  Joel Spolsky, ex-Microsoft Manager and software engineering guru has a new essay, How Microsoft Lost the API War that is creating quite a big storm in the blogging communitiy.  Joel posits that the priests in the holy Temple of Microsoft have lost their way, because it has split into two factions, and the wrong faction is winning. One faction worships on the alter of backward compatibility, while the other is led by fervent priests who are proselytizing to raise up the new gods of .NET and Longhorn. Joel suggests that the new gods will cause the destruction of the holy Temple because Microsoft's great victories were built on the altar of keeping customers happy with backward compatibility. Furthermore the old gods of the Windows API continue to grow more grotesque and cruel with the passing of time, driving former worshipers into the arms of the friendlier gods of World Wide Web.  This story sounds extremely plausible. I must admit that i fit the profile of the developer who used to develop on the Window's API, is familiar with COM and Win32 who now develops mostly using PHP and Python. However I continue to develop and maintain Windows apps that keep our customers happy, and we still plan to develop new Windows apps. Some points:  Temple of the Blind? Firstly, Microsoft is still a compelling place to work for to people who feel that they can make a difference. The Temple continues to attract talented people with a Unix background. For example we have the recent hiring of Ward Cunningham, author of the Wiki.  Microsoft is still able to keep talented people like Raymond Chen, and others like him who continue to look after the Windows API, and Longhorn apparently will still give high priority to backward compatibility. Open sourcerers like Miguel Icaza are sufficiently attracted to the .NET vision to stake their careers on Mono. Longhorn and .NET are compelling technologies, so even if Win32 is not so cute anymore, M'soft is providing something that remains very attractive.  What i do see M'soft doing wrong is that they aren't disseminating the .NET runtime fast enough. It remains an optional install in XP Service Pack 2 for example. Also their IE dev team appears to be hog-tied due to political reasons; nevertheless IE remains good enough, particularly when I can embed IE as an activeX control, something I cannot do with Mozilla (AFAIK) - Update: I'm wrong.  Temple of the Spider?  Secondly, people don't merely use a web browser. They run the web browser in the OS.  So let me ask you, if you are using DreamWeaver or HomeSite or Photoshop or vi or emacs or Gimp, how many of you are willing to give it up for a java applet (or whatever your favorite technology is) running in your web-browser? Precisely.  Temple of the Abandoned?  Third, Joel makes the claim that developers are not developing to the Windows API. Well he could be right. But I bet a lot of them are still calling Win32.  If you are using a framework or IDE like Delphi or wxWindows (or .NET or VB) then you certainly are insulated from the Windows API, but that doesn't mean that you're not calling the Windows API all the time. I don't see Borland dropping their Windows version of Delphi at any point in time.   In fact, the fact that many developers are using some form of framework is a compelling argument for Microsoft to enhance the .NET framework to attract developers who are using other frameworks.  Today, not that many students learn x86 assembler, but that doesn't mean that Intel lost the CPU wars. Just because fewer people are learning Win32 doesn't mean Microsoft has lost the API wars, if the frameworks run predominantly on Win32.  Temple of the Lost  Joel even warns you in the beginning that "because I'm talking about big trends, I need to exaggerate and generalize". But you still get sucked in because Joel Spolsky is a first-class writer, in the same order as Philip Greenspun or Eric Raymond. That makes him so persuasive and plausible. But this is not Indiana Jones and doomed temples, but Steve Jobs and reality distortion fields.  Other opinions:  Harry Fuecks (PHP is ASP's upgrade path),  Dennis Hamilton (M'soft is just covering all bases), Robert McLaws (Joel is wrong in 7 points), Oliver Travers (the web is not good enough), One Run-time to Rule them all....
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By RANDY MYERS  In the no-holds-barred blogosphere, every voice can be raised. But not everyone cares to listen.  Some visit blogs for updates on political chicanery, others to hear about a hot restaurant, movie, celebrity or technogadget.
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Microsoft is working on the Smart Blogroll, a way for bloggers and blog readers to learn more about the information and topics discussed on blogs. Bill Slawski points to a paper by Eric Baumer which defines the Smarter Blogroll: Our approach was to scrape the RSS feeds for all the blogs on a user&#8217;s blogroll, run a [...]
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Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a new set of Web-based services allowing users of its MSN service to publish and track each other&#39;s blogs.
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Search Engine Watch gains a blog, as a new method of better speading news and information about search engines to readers.