WordPress.com is now default blogging platform for Windows Live users

Windows Live are partnering to make WordPress the default blogging platform for Windows Live users after an announcement by Windows Live’s Dharmesh Mehta.

The new partnership effectively kills Windows Live’s native blogging platform, Windows Live Spaces, and adds about 7 million blogs to the WordPress platform. Users will have about six months to migrate their blog over to the WordPress platform, Mehta said.

“Windows Spaces users can pack up all their stuff and migrate their blogs over to WordPress, and keep blogging on WordPress.com,” said Automattic CEO Toni Schneider.

Schneider said 8.5 percent of all sites on the Web are already powered by WordPress, adding up to about 26 million currently active blogs and 250 million visitors each month. Windows Live Spaces, by comparison, has about 30 million customers, Mehta said.

WordPress Offers Content Encouragement with Plinky

In an effort to relieve writer’s block woes, Automattic (news, site), the company behind WordPress, has acquired a content encouragement service called Plinky.

Essentially, Pinky provides writers with prompts aimed at inspiring content.

The solution was kicked out last year by Thing Labs, a company founded by ex-Googler Jason Shellen. Sadly, in April it was announced that they were too consumed with work on another solution of theirs, Brizzly, to continue updating Plinky.

“We put a lot of work into [Plinky], and we think it’s a great site,” said the company’s announcement. “At the same time, we feel we have much more to offer with Brizzly than we ever could have with Plinky.”

Enter Automattic. The content-loving company purchased Shellen’s discarded solution (for an undisclosed amount) hoping to provide WordPress users with a way to get back into the writing game.

“We’ve all been there — those days when the light bulb seems dim, if not burned out,” said Automattic’s Joy Victory. “To give you a little creative push and get that writerly mojo flowing again, we’ve added a new service called Plinky.com. Each weekday, Plinky provides a prompt — like a question or a challenge — and you type in an answer.”

Whether or not it will actually inspire posts remains to be seen, but, in any case, it’s nice to see one man’s digital trash become another man’s digital treasure.

The solution has already been implemented, but you have to have to sign up for a Plinky account separately if you want to use it. Then, add your WordPress.com blog to Plinky and start creating.