14 DAY TRIAL // Time is running out for Windows Live Spaces users to upgrade their blogs to WordPress.com, with just a few months remaining. According to statistics provided by the Redmond company over 1 million new WordPress.com blogs have been created by customers transitioning away from Windows Live Spaces which is shutting down in the first quarter of 2011.
Microsoft has put a spin on the migration, in an attempt to convince users that they’re actually upgrading their blogging platform, and while in a sense this is true, it’s also true that the Redmond company would not invite anyone to upgrade to WordPress had it not been for the discontinuation of Windows Live Spaces.
“As of today, just over half a million Spaces blogs have now migrated to WordPress.com. On top of that, nearly half a million additional Windows Live customers have decided to create entirely new blogs on WordPress.com.
“And for each of those nearly 1 million new people now blogging on WordPress.com, there are, of course, many more new blog visitors also now going to WordPress.com,” revealed Dharmesh Mehta, Director, Windows Live Product Management.
Users will only be able to post updates on their existing Windows Live Spaces blogs until the end of this year.
Come January 2011, Microsoft will no longer allow new content to be added to the website, while still keeping blogs live and permitting access to visitors. This will change by the end of Q1 2011.
“As part of this partnership, we’re helping customers to migrate their existing Windows Live Spaces blogs over to WordPress.com, and we’re using the power of Messenger Connect to help customers share their blog posts with their Messenger friends,” Mehta added.
“People are continuing to migrate their Spaces blogs over to WordPress.com, and to those of you who haven’t gotten around to it yet, we want to remind you that you’ll need to do so before March 2011.”
Text, photos, videos and comments are transferred in the migration from Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com, but this doesn’t go for draft posts, theme, gadgets, guestbook, and lists.