It appears that MSN Messenger will be the first IM application to integrate the blogging features I mentionned in November (read Blogging’s Eventual Convergence with Instant Messaging).
On December 2nd, Microsoft launched their new blogging service termed “MSN Spaces” and at the same time they released a beta version of MSN Messenger 7 with many of the features I described in my November post. Their web site describes the blog integration features as follows:
Works Great with MSN Spaces: Preview a Space from Contact cards with a direct link to view photos, blogs and more. You can even see what music they are listening to. Every time a Space is updated, your Messenger contacts will “gleam” to notify you of the change.
Apparently MSN Spaces is not the best blogging platform however. It has been reported that any language deemed inappropriate by Microsoft is filtered out of blog postings. Hence, sensorship and limited freedom of speech which will not sit well with current bloggers. According to Microsoft’s censorship system, a title like “Pornography and The Law” is inappropriate, but “Smoking Crack: A How-To Guide For Teens” is perfectly fine. 😀
It will be interesting to see if Google releases an IM application in the near future featuring similar integration with its extremely popular, fully mature, sensorship free blogging service that is Blogger.com.