Microsoft's Spaces: are they blogs?

Certainly, they are blogs, at least for Joe Sixpack, but why did they call them 'Spaces'? My guess is that they're going to take them deeper into Microsoft land, and the term 'blog' won't fit later. Already they're locked into MS's instant message app, Messager and their authentication system Passport.

Already they're hyping the sharing of song lists (only through MS's Media Player and of course the purchase of music) and distribution of digicam pix between friends, which is more a by product of blogging IMHO. They're also promoting the idea of community between other 'spacers' in that there will be plenty of ways of discovering and linking to other 'spacers.' Blogging is all about the openness of the blogosphere. And we all know what MS thinks of open source.

Dare Obasanjo (the lead developer) says nice things, while Scoble says not so nice things. And the BBC reviews the service, impartially. While someone else compares and contrasts to TypePad.

My main gripe, and it is a worry, is that Microsoft may not play nice with the rest of the blogosphere. Or worse, they play nice for a bit the... If they get a huge, huge number of users quickly, as is likely with their massive worldwide roll out, it'll be too difficult for them to not close the trunk, cutting themselves off from the rest of the world, and chopping many fingers in the process.

Consider for example, will they support the metaWeblog API? One the the lead developers asks this question and says the metaWeblog API is limited. Sure it is, but it does all that's needed currently; that is, posting a blog entry from another client. He moans that other functionality like their song lists isn't within the metaWeblog API. Dare Obasanjo should look at Manila's API; the most extended and complete API in today's weblogging world.

Were they to extend the metaWeblog API to suit their needs in an open and accessible way, and say, Nokia's LifeBlog plugged into it (though LiferBlog is based on TypePad's own version of the Atom API), would it be too tempting to screw that for Nokia, while MS develops their own API or proprietise the metaWeblog API onto their own mobile phone platform?

Think of the fun MS could have with making it drop dead easy to post images, upload song lists from your (MS) phone and only your MS phone. They could really lock Symbian out of the trunk, and Blogger (Google) and Yahoo (who'll, sure to be, soon releasing their own blog tool, like every other portal) and every other blogging platform. This is perhaps why 'blogs' would be to limiting a term for them.

I don't think 400lb gorillas are capable of playing nice.