Microsoft is closing its classifieds service in July. The company had officially launched the service in February 2006 with the somewhat confusing name "Windows Live Expo." Another large online service, AOL, shuttered its classified ad service in December 2005. At the time it said it was transitioning into an aggregator of listings from leading industry partners.

Live Expo's closing comes as eBay, Craigslist, LiveDeal, newspapers and others fiercely compete in the growing classifieds space.

Classifieds aggregator Oodle.com searches across many of these sites, and allows sellers to user their service directly or through partner sites such as the recently launched Walmarts.com classifieds service. Oodle brings back search results, and when users click on particular listings, they are taken to the classified site where the ad originated.

Microsoft said it would discontinue its classifieds service on July 31, 2008, and said it was discontinuing the following functionality immediately: create a new account; post a new listing; extend a listing; and upgrade a listing to a premium listing. "All current listings will remain on expo.live.com until they expire," read the announcement.

http://expo.live.com