I just got done noodling with the Microsoft Mail Live Beta's integration with Spaces.live.com. The new 'outlook express replacement' has an option to write a blog post (or simply blog an email) directly from the mail client. Google docs offers similar functionality so I thought I'd give that a test drive too (this post was made using Google docs).
The Live Mail (beta 12.0.1184) to Live Spaces integration had a couple quirks:
(1) The title of the blog entry is changed on publication from whatever was typed (like 'thoughts on dogs') to be prefixed with the phrase "talking about...". So the post ends up as "talking about thoughts on dogs".
(2) The body of the entry, typed within a Live Mail editor much like the e-mail editor is changed on publication to be a quoted text block.
(3) The publish to blog link simply opens the browser to the web-based Spaces blog editor with the text filled in (with the changes noted above).
Maybe nice for transferring an email to a blog entry, but that can easily be done with copy and paste. Overall first impression: evolutionary, not revolutionary. That seems to be the tag line for tech this year.
Over on the Google Docs / Blogger front, there were some quirks too.
(1) Sending a document to blogger involves clicking the "Publish" tab. The user must preconfigure their blog target. If that is not done, clicking the 'publish to blog' button activates the blog target configuration dialog/webform. But you aren't done! Finishing the dialog simply configures the settings. You have to push the same button again to send off the blog post. This is all written on the screen (sort of) so if you are into reading directions, this double-pump shouldn't be a problem.
(2) Google docs offers to use the title of the document as the blog post title, or at least implies that is what it is going to do. Google docs has a 'feature' of using the first line of text in your document as the title. If you rename your document then publish, the new document name is disregarded and your post is untitled. Wierd, hard to follow, and just plain quirky.
(3) No labels support. Labels can be applied by opening the post in the blogger editor and tagging.
Bottom Line: both of these are preliminary editing tools. Some post-posting clean-up will still be required.
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