Windows Live Spaces (also known by its users as MSN Spaces) is Microsoft's blogging and Social Networking platform. The site was originally released in early 2004 under the MSN Spaces name to compete with other social networking sites. Windows Live Spaces received an estimated 27 million (27,000,000) unique visitors per month as of August 2007.
There are various, obvious differences between MSN Spaces and Windows Live Spaces, the most instantly evident being a redesigned layout engine. This allows users greater flexibility in terms of the layout of their "Space", for example, it is now possible to move the "Title and Tagline" as a module, where before it was permanently fixed to the top of the page. It also looks to resolve some oft-criticised characteristics of MSN Spaces, such as the alignment of content on the computer screen. MSN Spaces was designed for resolutions of 800×600 pixels and above, and all content on the page grew out from the left side of the screen. This led to the page occupying only part of the available screen area on displays with resolutions of the order of 1280×1024 pixels, wasting a large area to the right. Windows Live Spaces aligns all content to the centre of the screen and appears to have been designed for best viewing on a resolution of 1024×768 pixels
The URL for all MSN Spaces members were moved to keep with the Windows Live branding. (Example - thespacecraft.spaces.msn.com was moved to thespacecraft.spaces.live.com), with the old url continuing to work as a redirect.