But back to the blog thing.
Since I’m one of the coveted billion or so users with a Hotmail account, I used my privileged level of access to set up one of the precious and expensive sites. (I lie: anyone can have one, and they’re free. I’m being sarcastic. That’s what playing office political bingo for years on end will do to your brain. Don’t do rugs, okay?)
I’m digressing again, Occupational hazard.
So the long and the short of this new MS blogging service is as follows: it’s blogging for folks who can’t be bothered to learn about blogging. It offers little-to-no control over the finer aspects of cascading stylesheets and XML. It doesn’t let you use your own domain name. It won’t make a three-cheese omelette for Sunday morning breakfast.
It’s sure pretty enough, with lovely screen artifacts that make any Mac-addict salivate. But most MS properties look pretty at first blush. It’s when you dig into them a little deeper that you realize they’re being held up by duct tape and poly filla.
Wait, that’s not true. Duct tape would muck up the insides of your computer. Anyone knows that!
Turning serious for but a moment, Microsoft’s arrival in the blogosphere (why it isn’t simply the blogsphere, without the superfluous O, is beyond me) is, to a certain extent, a milestone in the evolution of the medium. It legitimizes the field, and raises its profile within markets that might previously have considered blogging to be populated by lonely denizens of society’s fringe. In doing so, it opens the door to a more mainstream, commercialized future for blogging. (I know, uh oh.)
If you head over there for a look-sie, please come on back to this humble little non-MS site and let us know what you think.
4 comments:
"(why it isn’t simply the blogsphere, without the superfluous O, is beyond me)"
Didn't ya know, Carmi Boy? The Blog O'Sphere is Irish!! Erin go Braugh!! (whatever that means)
- Mellie Helen http://gollybloghowdy.com
Here's my first responses upon visiting a "Spaces" site.
Nasty...a three column layout for the home page?
Ugh...tabs?
OMG...Tables! You're kidding right?
No, they're not kidding. Microsoft has not created Blog software, they have created lame ass online content management software with the lamest of lame blog components built in. It so barely satisfies the minimum requirements for a blog that it's laughable. No archives that I can see, no recent posts feature that I saw looking at other pages.
"Blogging is huge." That's a good one. Somebody please tell me then why I had never heard of it until this year. And I don't live under a rock. I practically live on the internet. My clothes are slowly but surely getting ether all over them.
I even this summer got an email from my Pop that said "What's a blog? I asked Eileen (his wife) and all she could tell me was that it was something to do with computers that us old f***s wouldn't know about."
Good analysis of the MS Spaces. Thought as much when I created a test blog - as one of the chosen billion - and talked about it on my blog. And besides, the permalinks are a mess: http://spaces.msn.com/members/work4bandwidth/Blog/cns!1ph841wQSPRhhi7vK7xDi52w!105.entry They are even longer than blogger. Not easy to pass on. Even the main domain is too long to quickly get someone to jot it down!
Oh, and I like the writing and photography on your blog . I'm glad *Red* pointed it out to me earlier in the year.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Works-4-bandwidth
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