4.5 MILLION MSN SPACES USERS

Good point in this news article that only 4% are updated daily, but I wonder how many are actually active after the initial setup. Also how many are updated every two weeks?

Microsoft officially launched MSN Spaces, its free Web logging service, on Thursday.

The company said in a statement that since it was introduced in test form Dec. 1, 4.5 million blogs have been set up. However, fewer than 4% (about 170,000) are updated daily, according to the Seattle Times.

New to the official release of MSN Spaces is advertising, with Volvo as the first customer -- putting its banner ads on Spaces and also sponsoring a "best of" page, inviting people to write about experiences with their automobiles. MSN Spaces staff will scour other blogs for compatible posts and put them on the Volvo site, according to Microsoft .

The company also released a new version of its MSN Messenger software for instant, voice, and video messaging. It too will have advertising, starting with Coca Cola Co.'s Sprite offering downloads of "theme packs," which include animations and backgrounds and audio clips. American Greetings Corp. also plans to sell icons for personalizing messages. (full article)