Microsoft is rumored to be has announced it is launching a blog service this week, MSN Spaces:

Mary Jo Foley

[from MSN Readies New Blogging Service]

MSN is expected to tout MSN Spaces as a direct competitor to blog-creation and hosting tools, such as Blogger, Blog*Spot, LiveJournal and TypePad. Microsoft also will position MSN Spaces as a way to allow users to more easily share photo albums and music lists, too, insiders said.

Some users have been speculating that MSN will allow users to post to their blogs via MSN Messenger 7, the latest version of Microsoft's consumer instant-messaging client, which is in beta now and due to ship in early 2005.

In August, MSN launched a beta version of its blogging tool for the Japanese market only. At that time, MSN officials declined to discuss when and if they planned to broaden the beta to other countries. MSN officials said they considered the MSN Spaces beta as "an incubation project."

It will be interesting to see if this is an area where Microsoft will be a juggernaut, or whether the established players like SixApart and Google, can hold to first mover advantages.

Are blogs too sticky for people to switch based on a few moderately interesting additional features? Although I am mad about IM, I personally have few contacts using MSN, so that feature, which in principle interests me, won't work because of the interoperability mess that people like Microsoft allow to persist.

It may well be that blog technology will turn out to be a market where Microsoft doesn't have an in. Close integration with Office, Outlook, Live Meeting, Sharepoint, Live Communication Server and (most interesting, I think) OneNote could play well in the enterprise space, however. The Dark Side of the Blogosphere -- behind the corporate firewall -- is a huge and really untapped play. Companies like Silkroad, Traction, and others that have been gearing up for a market shift to blogs will now have to contend with the 800 lb gorilla who wants all those bananas.

I will try to get a demo as soon as possible, and let you know.

[pointer via Renee Blodgett via Bill Ives]