Many People starts to try out this new blog, and I was trying out the "Blog it" feature to see how it would look like... pretty cool...

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Created BLOG

Microsoft entered BLOG market. It is free, and my beloved nickname "Tkl" is still available. I never though about BLOG but I cannot give up nickname again .

All in all, after having a testdrive for a few hours, this blog client deserve a 7 out of 10.  I would give a full 10, if the blog offers more flexibility in customizing the blog look and feel.  However the heap of features prevent me to give any score less than 7.  Many of the features quite unique, especially with the scrolling pictures etc, and this help to put Spaces up front among the other blog clients.  Nevertheless, I still have my quemls on this tool, atleast up till it matures, and we will see if Spaces offer more flexibility.  I would recomend this to new bloggers, who dont know much of blogging, and to avid microsoft users.  If you are using firefox, you may miss out some of the goodies, but the functionality difference are not much. 

Msn Spaces does not fall short in Customization, there are a heap in skins, modules and layout.  Though there are plenty of variations, it will not be enough for many people.  Msn Spaces does not offer user own customization, means there will not be any HTML, no css, etc.. This is great for bloggers who just want a fast blog and dont mind much on the layout, but for people who wants to stand out, there are no such flexibility.  This is a huge drawback, and I hope in future versions, this feature is avialable. 

With Blogger.com, after setting up the blog, the next thing is to look for site counter, and there are plenty of that around.  With MSN Spaces, this feature is built in.  Blogger can view how many people visit their page and where they visit from.  I just setup my blog for about 3 hours and so fast there are already 87 visits.  This is helped by the recently updated box at the main blog, you are automatically linked to thousands of blog when you update.  Thus, everytime, you update, there will be surge of visitors, how cool is this...

Msn Spaces gives bloggers the option to control who view their blogs.  There are 3 level of settings, first is 'Public', where everyone can view the blog.  Second is 'Messenger', where only people in the Messenger can view the blog and finally 'Private', where the blogger can choose only people in his/her MSN Address book to view the blog.  Again this is an execellent feature that blogger.com doesn't have.  If you setup a blog at blogger.com, no matter what setting you choose, your blog will be posted and can be googled.  People can still reach your site, even you dont want anyone to read it.  So, it is not that private.  Msn Spaces however, gives this control to the blogger.  The caveat is that if you want to allow a few people to view your blog, they will have to be in your MSN Address book, of which they need to have a Msn Passport. 

The Playlist feature on Msn spaces is what brought me to this blog.  I was searching for a way to post my WMP playlist into the web and stumble upon the Msn Spaces.  Bloggers can upload the playlist and it will apear on the main page.  Going to the music page in detail, the visitor can click on the song or the singer/band.  A popup page will come up with songs from MSN Music database and the visitor could listern to the sample of the songs, and can also buy direct from that site.  Yes, another money making for Microsoft, selling music thorugh bloggers.  Visitors can also vote on the playlist, another interesting feature.  This gives the visitor to have a small say in your choice of music.  Not only they can comment on your blog, they can also vote on your playlist....

What is lacking in this feature is having album art on the main page or at the music page.  Sputnik, a little widget that works with Konfabulator enable iTunes users to upload playlist and Album Art (from Amazon.com) onto their blog through FTP.  I posted Disagree, our local rock band and could not find any media from them on MSN Music.. By the way, if you are looking for Disgree songs, you can purchase them through www.musiccanteen.com or at www.disagreeband.com the band's web site.  This band rock man by the way. 

The Photo Album on Msn Spaces has a very interesting feature that I like.  It slowly slide across all the photos you have in your album, and you can set the speed of the slideshow.  I have not seen this feature anywhere and it is rather unique.  (also maybe I am ignorant of other blogging software, nevertheless, I am impress)  Below are some screen shots of uploading photos and managing the photo albums.  There is also a stoage tab under settings, and the user can manage the photos with a 10mb free space.  At the photo album editing page, if you place your mouse at the bottom of the page (as in the photo below), you will see a small control panel with thumbnail of all the photos in the album.  Ofcourse, you can only enjoy this feature if you are using IE.  You can set the scrolling time of your photos here. 

Another 'Hot' feature from MSN Spaces is mobile blogging.  If you have a cell phone, and would like to post photos or text from your phone, MSN Spaces have a build in feature for that.  Below is a screenshot of the setup page.

My suspicion was correct.  If one blog from FireFox, there are no text formating features.  However, from IE, the user will have a tab of text formating features.  The Left screenshot below is from FireFox and the Right screenshot is from IE.  The text formating features are minimal without any font type or size feature.  I have also notice that the blog automatically create thumbnails for the photos uploaded.  Nice feature, however, the Add Photo feature does not give much flexibility of control.  The blog will automatically place the photos below the post and the user have no control on photo placement nor the size of the photo or the size of the thumbnail.  However, this feature is 'Hot' as how Paris Hilton would put it, giving a blogger to post photos easily.  For a person who love to customize like me, this feature is almost useless.