Windows Live Spaces

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Windows Live Spaces
The Windows Live Spaces logo.

Windows Live Spaces homepage
Developer Microsoft
Latest release 12.2.1265.1006 / October 12, 2007
Genre Social Networking
License Freeware
Website http://spaces.live.com

Windows Live Spaces (also known by its users as MSN Spaces) is Microsoft's blogging and Social Networking platform. The site was originally released in early 2004 under the MSN Spaces name, as Microsoft's competitor to similar services like MySpace, Bebo and Yahoo!'s 360°. Windows Live Spaces received an estimated 27 million (27,000,000) unique visitors per month as of August 2007.[1]

Contents

Several "gadgets" are available for Windows Live Spaces users that allows for greater customisation of an individual's space.[2] The "Windows Media Player" Gadget gives users the ability to play and display music and videos on their Windows Live Space. The "Tweak UI" Gadget, gives users the flexibility to alter the style, color and transparency of certain aspects of a Windows Live Space, while the "Custom HTML" Gadget grants users the ability to call a small amount of hand-written HTML code (a feature that is often used for displaying banners and other graphics).

Contact Cards can be viewed in Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail and in a member's profile.
Contact Cards can be viewed in Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail and in a member's profile.

Contact Cards, which summarize recent additions to a Windows Live Space for a particular user, are integrated with Windows Live Messenger, MSN Web Messenger and Hotmail Contacts. Clicking on a users icon in your buddy list, pops up their Contact Card which shows thumbnails of their recent photos, a summary of their recent blog entries and a short list of recent songs from their playlist. The contact cards have not yet been updated to the new ones used in Messenger 8.1

MSN Spaces was Microsoft's free Social Networking platform. The site was launched in early December 2004 with the aim of allowing its users to reach out to others by publishing their thoughts, photos and interests in an easy and compelling way. With this goal, MSN Spaces finds itself competing with similar services like MySpace and Yahoo!'s 360°.

As well as allowing users to share their thoughts, photos and interests, MSN Spaces users were given over 100 varied themes and several different page layouts to choose from when designing their MSN Space. Users also had the option to set access rights for visitors to their MSN Space based on the relationship between them (e.g. Friends, Family etc.). Visitors were also granted when their contacts' had updated their MSN Space. On the 1st of August 2006, MSN Spaces became part of the Windows Live services platform, where it is now rebranded as Windows Live Spaces.

Windows Live Spaces layout as of July 2007
Windows Live Spaces layout as of July 2007

There are various, obvious differences between MSN Spaces and Windows Live Spaces, the most instantly evident being a redesigned layout engine. This allows users greater flexibility in terms of the layout of their "Space", for example, it is now possible to move the "Title and Tagline" as a module, where before it was permanently fixed to the top of the page. It also looks to resolve some oft-criticised characteristics of MSN Spaces, such as the alignment of content on the computer screen. MSN Spaces was designed for resolutions of 800×600 pixels and above, and all content on the page grew out from the left side of the screen. This led to the page occupying only part of the available screen area on displays with resolutions of the order of 1280×1024 pixels, wasting a large area to the right. WLSpaces aligns all content to the centre of the screen and appears to have been designed for best viewing on a resolution of 1024×768 pixels

The URL for all MSN Spaces members were moved to keep with the Windows Live branding. (Example - thespacecraft.spaces.msn.com was moved to thespacecraft.spaces.live.com), with the old url continuing to work as a redirect.

MSN Spaces displayed small text advertisements, often with simple logos at the top of the page. WLSpaces display a single standard sized advertisement banner in the Animated GIF or Adobe Flash format. Subscribers to premium Windows Live services are able to turn these advertisements off.

Currently Spaces are best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Some users of the older versions of Mozilla Firefox, are finding the site completely unusable (it reports a "missing framework" error). Newer versions of Firefox (2.0 and above) have no problems displaying the pages. Other users report that it occasionally displays pages incorrectly; a problem inherited from MSN Spaces. Recently, however, some of the Firefox errors seem to have been fixed, like the "missing framework" error and the inability to leave comments on others' spaces through Firefox. Users of the Mac OS X browser, Safari, are unable to change their space's theme.

The Terms and Conditions that all users must agree to when signing up for a Windows Live Space, grant Microsoft permission to "(1) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission, each in connection with the MSN Web Sites, and (2) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law." Finally noting that "Microsoft will not pay you for your Submission." [3]

It has also mentioned that Windows Live Spaces censors the words that a user can choose when naming their Space, prohibiting for example the word whore or the so-called "seven dirty words". [4] In addition, Microsoft has received criticism for censoring the words "democracy" and "freedom" under its Chinese portal. [5]

Despite being a useful messaging and communication tool, Windows Live Spaces has been criticized as not being as powerful as some of its alternatives. One IT magazine recommends the use of Windows SharePoint Services, or a Wiki, instead of Windows Live Spaces.[6]

  1. ^ Face to interface. Social networks. Economist.com. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.
  2. ^ PowerToys are here!!!. The Space Craft. Windows Live Spaces. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.
  3. ^ Michael Connolly. Who Owns My Blog Content?. Michael Connolly's Old Space. Windows Live Spaces. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.
  4. ^ Microsoft blog service sparks censorship dodging. ZDnet. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.
  5. ^ Microsoft deletes 'freedom' and 'democracy' in China. The Register. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.
  6. ^ Space Setter. Inside IT. The Guardian. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.

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Developer services Dev · Data · SDK · Tools
Mobile services Hotmail Mobile · Live.com Mobile · Messenger Mobile · Search Mobile · Spaces Mobile
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Spaces"
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