Wordpress vs MSN Spaces

Blogging tools are popping everywhere, some are easy to use, some are very robust but sometimes complicated and others are so simple that using them can back-fire and all of your efforts can go to waste.  MSN Spaces is a blogging account provided my MSN to users who create a MSN Live account or have email accounts with them.  A hotmail user can create a blog using the same info they use to login into their email account.  Once a user has created a MSN Spaces account they will see several options necessary to customize this tool and the aspect of their site.

Pros and Cons:

Sub-sub domains, that’s how we can refer to MSN Spaces. Normally a subdomain would be formatted such as “SubdomainName.DomainName.com” in the case of MSN Spaces the actual address you would have to provide to your  friends who want to see your space would be something like this “YourName.Spaces.Live.com” For some users the use of more than one dot is a huge inconvenience, especially if you have friends who use other instant messaging systems such as Yahoo instant messenger, ICQ and others. With Wordpress users can choose to host their blog within Wordpress’s servers and get a real subdomain such as “YourName.Wordpress.com” if you compare this subdomain to the subdomain you get at MSN Spaces you will understand why Wordpress’s is much more convenient.

When it comes to hosting you are pretty much forced to host your MSN Spaces blog within their own servers, you are not able to take the blogging script and install it in your server so as far as hosting options MSN Spaces is not very flexible.  Wordpress allows users to host their site wherever they want.

Storefront and Administration Appearance:

MSN Spaces can be edited very easily, the first step is to login to your account and then make your first entry, this way you will have something to see while editing and customizing your site, after you have the content in place you can import photos into your account using their built in tool.  Your list of friends will also show up in the site’s sidebar.  The editing interface is based on a WYSIWYG editor so users don’t even have to know HTML in order to edit their site.  Wordpress’s admin area is very easy to use as well, however the user has a lot more options as far as templating, site customization, widgets and add-ons.

Also, all MSN Spaces sites have a very invasive frame at the top of the site which might take the visitors away from the site or distract them, unlike Google’s Blogger this sidebar is not small at all and is a major inconvenience.  Wordpress has no top frames of any kind, this makes the site look more professional and attractive.

Plugins and Add-ons:

This is just one of the many areas where MSN Spaces fall short, this blogging platform doesn’t allow users to customize their site’s function through the use of widgets, sure a blogger can add content to the sidebars and show interactive content but it doesn’t come close to all the things you can do with Wordpress.

If you love your MSN messenger and only want a simple blogging tool where you can share your experiences with friends and family then MSN Spaces is good enough, for those who want a better looking blog with several options will find Wordpress is the best solution.