14 DAY TRIAL // Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and the WordPress blogging platform, and Microsoft have announced that Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to migrate to WordPress.com as Live Space will be shut down in six months' time.
The blogging platform, part of the Windows Live suite, appears to be quite popular, Microsoft says that it has about 30 million active "customers," though it's unclear if that actually translates into the number of blogs hosted by Spaces.
Microsoft counts everyone that logs into Spaces an active user. VentureBeat is reporting that Spaces has about 7 million blogs.
Compete and Quantcast show between one million and two million unique visitors to spaces.live.com. Arguably, the two analytics companies estimate visitor data so the actual numbers may vary, even significantly.
By comparison, WordPress.com now hosts close to 12 million blogs and gets more 250 million visitors each month. An additional 14 million independently-hosted blogs are powered by the WordPress platform.
"We’re excited to announce that WordPress.com is now the default blogging platform for Windows Live Spaces users. We’ve worked with our partners at Microsoft to create a simple migration service for Spaces bloggers to easily bring all their posts, comments, and photos to WordPress.com," Automattic's Paul Kim wrote.
"Over a six month period, beginning today, Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to move their blogs to WordPress.com," he said.
"To make this possible, we’ve created a brand new importer for Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com. New Windows Live users will also be offered a WordPress.com blog when they choose to create a new blog," he added.
Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to start a new WordPress.com blog and migrate all of their posts, comments and content.
They will also be able to export their data or shut down their Spaces blog entirely. You can get more details on the deal here.
The two companies say no money changed hands in the deal. Most likely, Microsoft found that maintaining a blogging platform doesn't pay out and decided to shut down the service.
To soften the blow to its users, the company partnered with Automattic to create a customized importing tool. Even without the official deal, Automattic or a third-party could have easily created a similar migration tool to help Spaces users left without a home.