Mark Evans

Microsoft's Newest Blogging Play

I've been a big supporter of a blog publishing application from Vancouver-based Qumana, although, for whatever reason, I've been unable to use it on my laptop for the past couple of months. Perhaps Microsoft's new Windows Live Writer will be a viable challenger as a multi-blog publishing tool. This post, in fact, is being written using Live Writer. Getting started was  simple: after downloading the software, you enter the name of your blog, user name and password, and that's it. (Note: One thing I forgot to mention was a somewhat confusing option to have a Live Writer toolbar as part of IE, which I declined given I use Firefox. As well, Live Writer is not Mac-compatible.). Live Writer is not totally compatible with Blogware but, unfortunately, there are a lot of blogging applications not compatible with Blogware. However, my  Wordpress blog - All Nortel, All the Time - had no issues. Writing a post is straigtforward with all the normal bells and whistles found in Blogware, Wordpress, Typepad and Qumana. Perhaps the biggest thing that impresses me about Live Writer - at least so far - is Microsoft's willingness to let you use the application without signing up for Windows Live. It's a sign that perhaps Microsoft is willing to play nice to gain an even bigger foothold in the blogosphere.

Bottom Line: Live Writer isn't perfect but it's pretty good. If I were Qumana, I'd be concerned.

Update: Hey, Live Writer worked like a charm. Now let's see if I can update my post with some links. Tech Blog has checked out Live Writer, and seems impressed, Inside Microsoft provides a nice overview with lots of screen shots, while Rick Segal is puzzles why Live Writer uses Shift F7 to spell check posts. By the way, there's rumours Bleezer (a blog publishing tool created by Canadian Larry Borsato) will be upgraded soon. One more thing about Live Writer is the huge amount of attention it getting from the blogosphere. We're either in the dog days of summer when the news flow is slow, or Microsoft has really surprised people.