Another day, another service to be phased out. Seems like Windows Live Expo is going to be coming to an end.

Right now the site claims Expo is ending service July 31, 2008. The message always claims that you CAN'T:

• Create a new account
• Post a new listing
• Extend a listing
• Upgrade a listing to a premium listing

So pretty much, all you can do is maintain whatever is left of the postings you put up, and delete them or respond back to anybody that was interested. Then it all goes down the drain.

I didn't think it would take long. My thoughts on Live Expo is that the service is really cruddy, didn't offer much over Craigslist (well at least more direct pictures), stupid name (seriously, who not simply call it "Classifieds"?), outdated UI (Live Wave 2?), among other stupid things. Releasing mediocre services like this is not going to make people use Windows Live at all.

Heck, the Expo team can't even manage their blog (like many other teams btw), and haven't updated in eons. And the comment sections are piling with spam (if you can't manage the blog, at least close the comment section. Too lazy for that?). The Expo team is such a disappointment.

So good riddance. Maybe one day when the Live team gets their stuff right, we might see a really great classified service from them. However, after seeing the lazy Expo team (if they still exist) and their work, I don't really count on it.

I wonder what this could mean for Windows Live Favorites. That site too hasn't been updated to the Live Wave 2 UI. So will that go kaput? I don't really actually use Live Favorites, but I could one day if I might need to access some of my faves on a computer that isn't mine. So that would be a unique service worth keeping. If only that could just simply update it.

Maybe the WL teams can get their act together and do a better job instead of closing down services. Shows how weak they are.