MSN Spaces
Another star in MSN’s space.
Yesterday a new MSN service has been released. I take the time to talk about it because it opens many new possibilities for every body. Don’t worry, I’ll also talk about some security and privacy features of the new service (Is not the purpose of this blog?)!
Yeah, you are right, me too I’m talking about MSN Spaces. It’s the frenzy on Microsoft’s weblogs; everybody is writing posts about it. I didn’t take the time to check on the rest of the blogsphere but it’s probably the same frenzy there.
What is MSN Spaces? Basically it’s just another blog editing and publishing tool. What make it interesting? His interface and his simplicity. What make it really interesting? His integration with other MSN services like MSN search (eventually the beta version will be released), Hotmail and MSN Messenger (7 Beta).
MSN Spaces is a place where 140millions MSN messenger users can share their thoughts to their close circle of friends and/or the rest of the world. They can easily publish their posts on their blog with the MSN Space’s web interface or by email. There are pretty cool features like integrated photo albums and integrated music list. It’s a fully working blog system with permalinks, trackbacks and comments.
Now that you have an average view of what’s MSN Space, I’ll write some thoughts that come up in my mind at the moment.
It can seem crazy but I think that this is a good test to check if blogs can be a spam free communication system that will eventually replace emails. This idea was already discussed on the blogsphere before but I think that this new innovation will be a good testing zone for the idea. The integration with MSN Messenger makes it an elegant replacement to mass IM messaging or mass emailing. It’s permanent and you have the possibility to change your entries anytime. Your friends will be alerted that you have changed your blog and they will have the possibility, not the obligation, to read your new mass message. You’ll have the whole control of the information that other people will read. It’s a really interesting possibility of the system. You’ll tell me that blogs already do it, etc, etc, etc… But there is why this system different from other blog publishing tools:
The new feature that is only present in this blog system and that is only possible with the integration of MSN Spaces and MSN Messengers is the access control that you have on your personal MSN Space blog. You can literally choose who will be able to look at your blog. You can publish it on the web or make it only available for people on your contact list. This is a really interesting and essential privacy feature. It’s why I said that it can replace mails for some tasks.
Microsoft is taking security seriously with this new web service. It’s specifically why MSN Spaces is not compatible with other blog services APIs such as the Blogger API or MetaWeblog API. There is the answer of Dare Obasanjo (check out his blog; we have access to up-to-date information about MSN Spaces and his integration with other MSN services) of Microsoft:
” listed the problems with the current crop of blog posting APIs such as the Blogger API and MetaWeblog API in my post from a year and a half ago What’s Wrong with the MetaWeblog API? . The main issues for us working on MSN Spaces are
1. Security: The MetaWeblog API has no concept of security. Passwords are sent in plaintext as parameters to XML-RPC functions (i.e. they are sent in plain text on the wire as part of the XML message).
2. Limited Functionality: The MetaWeblog API only allows one to either post and edit blog entries, fetch information about a specific user or change the website template. This is a drop in the bucket considering all the things one would like to do with a weblog engine which can be supported by the engine.
The security issue is a big problem and we do not plan to compromise on it. Although it may be satisfactory for certain services to exchange user’s passwords in plain text where they can be sniffed by malicious third parties we don’t want the Passport accounts of our user’s exposed in such an insecure manner. This basically means we can’t plug into the ecosystem of tools and services built around blog posting APIs today.”
Finally, the best think that you can do is to test it and start your own MSN Spaces blog. Blogging is really a revolution in the small world of the Internet and a new way to distribute and access information.