Microsoft announced a new partnership with WordPress.com today to make WordPress.com the default blogging platform for Windows Live.
The partnership, which knits together Windows Live Spaces and WordPress.com, will allow for deep Windows Live integration with WordPress.com. Windows Live will allow content to be posted directly to WordPress from Windows Live, and all new content published on WordPress will be cross-posted on users’ Windows Live profile.
The new partnership is a win-win for both companies.While Windows Live Spaces is somewhat of an underrated platform, Windows Live’s Director of Project Management Dharmesh Mehra says that there are over 30 million Windows Live Spaces blogs. This new infusion of users will greatly strengthen WordPress.com’s standing in the blogosphere, as it will apparently hugely increase the total number of WordPress.com blogs.
The Windows Live Connect feature that this partnership will employ also expands Microsoft’s reach. By allowing existing WordPress.com users to sync their content with a Windows Live profile, Microsoft hopes that existing WordPress.com users will begin using Windows Live services.
Whether this will take a chunk out of Blogger and Google’s market share remains to be seen. However, at the very least, the personal blogging market just got a bit more interesting.
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