(Note: Disclaimer due to an active relationship around this general space.)

Ross Mayfield notes that MSN will be launching MSN Spaces (their blog authoring/hosting offering) sometime this week, with the comment:

"Other blogging vendors will thank them for introducing their users to blogging, otherwise not that much will change."

While I agree with him regarding the blog publishing platform (unless MSFT does an uncharacteristically good job with a 1.0 release), I'm not sure if the same can be said about MSNBlogBot, which (pure speculation here) might launch in conjunction with Spaces.

Just as every portal needs an email and web search offering, so to will they need a blog/Feed search solution (heck, Icerocket already has one). And, while I don't expect PubSub, Feedster or Technorati to sell for a bubblicious $400MM ala Hotmail, none of them have taken so much funding that a quick flip is out of the question... and may be a better bet vs. partnering with the big dogs (while they busily build their own solutions).

Update: Corrected typos, grammar. Apologies.