Wordpress.com isn't getting 30m Live Spaces users - think of a much smaller number. No, smaller than that. And Microsoft isn't getting Wordpress to shift to Azure either.
Perfect kit for finding Windows Live Spaces users. Photo by windy_ on Flickr. Some rights reserved
Is Wordpress.com getting all those Windows Live Space users really that much of a coup? There was plenty of excitement on the Windows Live Space blog and the Wordpress.com blog about how "30 million" (say it in a Dr Evil voice) blog would get moved over from Windows Live Spaces to Wordpress because, um, well, nice weather we're having... Nobody seemed able to explain quite why. Or, in other words, Microsoft had signally failed to monetise those blogs. (Couldn't it have done what Mark Zuckerberg did with Facebook and just let it grow? Anyway.)
Now Joe Wilcox at Betanews says he has obtained copies of internal Microsoft emails which suggest that 99% of those 30m blogs are "dead".
The email exchange dates from 28 September, Wilcox says, the day after the announcement. Wilcox says he's not naming the participants because that might mean trouble for those involved. (Er, yes.)
As Wilcox sagely notes,
"It's not unusual for companies like Microsoft to overstate statistics that aren't otherwise easily confirmed. There's often huge PR advantage in larger numbers, and reporters tend to assume the figures are correct, particularly when they can't otherwise easily be confirmed. Often lowly public relations employees make these kinds of decisions. In this case, the number means much to WordPress.com, which could conceivably double in size over six months if just half of Windows Live Spaces bloggers migrated to the Automattic service. As of September, WordPress.com hosted 13.9 million blogs."
"However, according to a senior Microsoft manger e-mailing colleagues: "The net is: 300k sites are expected to migrate of the 30M 'blogs' -- most are dead. Wordpress is adding somewhere in the order of zero servers to handle this capacity. This was a 'who has the best online service for blogging for our customers' and had nothing to do with technology."
But it turns out there's a little more to this than meets the eye. Microsoft would dearly love Automattic - the company behind Wordpress.com - to shift to using its Azure cloud system (it's like Amazon's Elastic Cloud Compute system, better known as EC2). Last November at its Professional Developer Conference Microsoft suggested (or let it be thought) that Wordpress/Automattic is hosted on Azure, or would soon be moving over. From the transcript: "One company I'd like to highlight is Automattic, developer of WordPress. WordPress is one of the most successful and pervasive blogging systems in existence today, used by tens of millions of bloggers worldwide. WordPress is also a tremendous ISV who's been working extensively with Windows Azure during the CTP...."
But that isn't the case at all.
As the Automattic blog pointed out soon afterwards in an FAQ: "Q: Are you moving WordPress.com to Azure?
A: No. WordPress.com, which is Automattic's hosted blogging service, is going to stay on its existing infrastructure. Martin Cron from the Cheezburger Network launched a new blog Oddly Specific on Azure, which some people confused with Automattic."
The existing infrastructure, since you wondered, being Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL.
And that's the crux, as Wilcox points out, of those internal emails. The Windows/Azure sales people are wailing: "Waah! Everyone is reading that there are 30 million blogs moving from Live Spaces on Azure/Windows to that damn Linux!" So the managers at Microsoft are trying to calm them down by saying that hell, there weren't that many people using them anyway.
However, neither end of the argument looks good for Microsoft's online efforts. Either it's giving up on a huge monetisation opportunity... or it never made any impact in blog hosting. So, choose your embarrassment, Mr Ballmer.
Internal Microsoft emails show that most 'Live Spaces' blogs were dead
Create Professional RSS Feeds
Create Professional RSS Feeds
By Sharon Housley
More and more companies are using RSS as a means to communicate, so having an RSS feed that is professional and well polished will help differentiate your company from your competition. What makes an RSS feed professional? Follow these simple steps to polish your RSS feed and take it to the next level...
1. Feed Image
Add an image to your RSS feed. The image will be displayed by many feed readers each time your feed is displayed. This will help build and reinforce your brand or image in the minds of people who read your RSS feed. Adding an image to an RSS feed is relatively easy, and adds a level of professionalism.
2. Images And Links
Add images and links within the RSS feed. The process of adding images and links to the description field of an RSS feed is really quite simple if you are using software to manage your feed, while it may be somewhat complex if you are hand-coding your feed. Incorporating images or hot links in the feed's content will allow your readers to explore further and dig deeper into your content. The added benefit, of course, are the additional web links back to your site from any sites that choose to syndicate or display your feed's contents.
3. Validate
Properly formed code is important, in order to ensure that all RSS readers can read and display your feed. But it is also very important for another reason... nothing is more embarrassing or unprofessional than an RSS feed that is broken or stops working. Use software to manage your feed creation, and validate your feed on a regular basis.
4. Easy To Subscribe
Make your RSS feed easy to subscribe to. Include the traditional RSS icon, or an indicator site-wide, so that website visitors can easily locate and subscribe to your RSS feeds. Include basic directions on how website visitors should subscribe to your RSS feed.
5. Auto Discovery
Add "auto-discovery" code to the HTML header of your website. Many RSS aggregators include an auto-discovery feature, which allows them to automatically detect when a website offers an RSS feed. So, if your website visitors are using one of those aggregators, they will instantly know that an RSS feed for your content is available from your website.
Instantly create auto discovery code - http://www.feedforall.com/autodiscovery.htm
6. Favicon
Add a "favicon" to your website. Favicons (short for "favorite icons") are typically a tiny version of a company or Web site's logo, and appear in the URL bar of the user's web browser. When a user bookmarks a specific Web page that includes a favicon, that Web page loads the customized icon into the user's browser. Because the favicon is usually displayed next to the web site address, it can act like a small logo or an icon that visitors can use to remember the web site or the site address. Feed directories and RSS Search Engines will often use a favicon beside an RSS feed's listings. So be sure that you have one on your website; otherwise, you'll have nothing but a generic icon beside your feed. Webmasters can establish branding by creating a favicon for their website. Here is a free service from HTMLKit: http://www.html-kit.com/favicon
7. Subscribe To Your Own Feed
Always subscribe to your RSS feed, so you can see what your website visitors are seeing.
While it is not essential to incorporate the above elements in your RSS feed, the additions will result in a more professional and polished RSS feed that stands apart from competitors in news aggregators and RSS directories. Spending a few extra minutes here could easily draw more attention to your feed.
