MSN Spaces review

Whenever Microsoft steps into any category, everyone else--competitor, customer, and partner--sits up and listens. MSN Spaces is Microsoft's answer to Google Blogger, SixApart TypePad, Yahoo 360, and other companies with blogging tools. Overall, we were impressed. MSN Spaces is very easy for beginners to use and offers most of the features found elsewhere.

Setting up Spaces is refreshingly simple--if you have a Microsoft .Net Passport account, that is. If you don't have an account, you'll have to sign up with Microsoft first. The .Net Passport allows you to use your e-mail address and a single password to log in to any Passport-participating Web service or site.

Unlike its competition, the MSN Spaces setup screen is confined to one page. Here, you'll type in the title of your blog (for example, My Six Months in Spain), your blog's Web address name (for example, http://msn.spaces.com/members/mysixmonthsinspain--where you provide only the last part), and your local time zone. Next, you click a box to accept Microsoft's user agreement. Once your Space is set up, you'll need to decide whether you want your blog to be public or private, accessible only to your MSN Messenger contacts.

Within seconds of setting up our account, Microsoft e-mailed us a confirmation. The interface for MSN Spaces has a pleasantly clean look--no clutter. But it's not so simplistic as to hide its many menu options. Not only do you know where you are at all times within your Spaces management area, Microsoft liberally sprinkles in helpful text to guide you throughout the blogging process.

Having a personal blog is all about having an online identity, and one of the only disappointments is that Microsoft does not offer a richer choice of MSN Spaces layout designs. Blogger.com offers dozens and dozens of customer-provided blogging designs, which makes Blooger.com's service very rich and varied. In contrast, Microsoft Office clip art supplies the familiar yet boring choice of designs available within MSN Spaces.