In October we reported that MSN Groups would be closed. The original plan was to close MSN Groups on February 21, but that has been extended to February 23. The team just posted a reminder that you’ll need to migrate your groups to the Multiply service, or save data from those groups locally before Monday, February 23. After that you will no longer be able to access your Group and any of the data in it.

First, congratulations to our friends at Windows Live for shipping a great looking new set of products today: a new fresh Spaces and Events, Windows Live People, Windows Live Profile, and Photos, along with what’s sure to become our new favorite Windows Live service – Windows Live Groups.  You can read more about the releases on The Space Craft, where there are further links to more in depth posts by the Windows Live teams.  Be sure to stop by and congratulate them on a job well done.

While we’re excited about all of the new and refreshed services, the truth is we’ve had our hands on pre-release bits for most of these services already, and while we haven’t had a chance to see the new Spaces or Photos until today, they’re not essentially new services.  But that doesn’t hold true for Windows Live Groups.

Damaster waxed a bit nostalgic the other day on some old concepts we’d seen floating around, and how they’ve finally come to pass.  Among those, called early on “Circles”, if we’ve got our top secret naming right, is what will now and hopefully forever be known as Windows Live Groups.  As you may know, LiveSide is an international affair, with writers in Seattle, London and the UK, Florida, Maryland, Georgia, the Netherlands, and Australia, and even Shanghai if you count our “cousin” LiveSino.net.  We would be lost without Windows Live Messenger, but to be honest Messenger just doesn’t quite cut it, especially with the time zones we span.  We’ve been waiting for Groups for a long time.

So today, for the first time, we created one.  Our first experience, after heading to www.groups.live.com, was to create the group itself:

We’ve been hearing rumors of the closure of MSN Groups and its replacement by Windows Live Groups for years now, last having written about it almost exactly a year ago. Now, however, in an email from Technical Support posted in the MSN Discussion public newsgroup, we have confirmation, and a timeline. In the email, a newsgroup poster who wrote Technical Support to ask for clarification on MSN Groups after an email went out to MSN Groups users in Italy telling them of the coming closure, and got a telling response. In the email, Claudia reveals that MSN Groups is “to close on February 21, 2009”, and that Windows Live Groups will launch on November 17, 2008.