Microsoft Launches Windows Live Spaces

Microsoft keeps on rolling with its Windows Live initiative, morphing its MSN Spaces blogging service into gadget-filled Windows Live Spaces.

Microsoft Corporation is trotting right along with its Windows Live series of online service offering, today announcing it has launched Windows Live Spaces, an evolution of its MSN Spaces blogging service.

Windows Live Spaces enables users to create personal blogs, photo albums, and music lists, and well as tap into the social networking craze by letting users “connect” to their real-world social network of friends and colleagues via their Windows Live Contacts list, which integrates directly with Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, and Windows Live Marketing Research. (OK, we made up that last one.) Windows Live Spaces also offers privacy settings which reportedly give users complete control over contact permissions and who can view their profiles and site contents.

But that’s not all: users can jazz up their Spaces with hundreds of Gadgets, which are little mini-applications appearing in the Web pages and offering functions from the vaguely-useful to the just-cutesy. Because, you know, no Web page is complete without a Hangman game.

“With the release of products such as Windows Live Spaces, we continue to deliver on our mission of bringing customers closer to the information and people that matter to them most,” said Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Online Services Group. “Windows Live and Internet-based ad-funded software and service are critical to driving growth for the company, and we are energized about the continued investments we’re making to help provide consumers with a seamless and safer online experience.”