this is the reply i had to my email to MSN Suport about whether they are closing MSN groups or not.

As you know we have Spiritual Circles on Freewebs incase this ever happend but for one thing, i havent updated it for a while, but also it doesnt have the same interactive capacity that MSN groups does.

If you still wish to be a member of spiritual circles can i ask you to email me on the group email address with your email and online name and i will contact you when i have set up the group somewhere else. I may try Multiply.com but i just do not like the format at all - its more like a blog than a group.

Spirit xxxxxxxxxx

Hello there,    

Thank you for writing to MSN Groups Technical Support. My name is Alvin and I understand that you are inquiring about the closure of MSN Groups. I realize the importance of addressing your concern.

It is true that we are planning to close the MSN Groups service on February 21, 2009 and will offer you the opportunity to move your Group to our new partner service, Multiply. We want you to be able to keep your Group together, so we partnered with Multiply to create a migration process that moves your Group to their service to preserve your online community and its history.

The migration method that Multiply has built for you will be ready next week. Once the service is ready we'll send all of our users an e-mail and will post notices within the MSN Groups site with more information, including instructions for beginning the migration process. In the meantime you can visit http://Multiply.com to get to know the service and see some of the thousands of Groups they host already.

Many users are asking why we are closing MSN Groups. We want to provide our customers with the most current and user-friendly technology available today and we made the difficult decision to close the MSN Groups service as part of our overall investment in updating and re-aligning our online services with Windows Live. In the long term we believe that closing the service is the best way to continue to offer innovative, best of breed services that help you stay in touch with the people you care about. It's very important to us that you still have access to your Group and its data and that is why we have partnered with Multiply, so you can keep your Group going into the future despite the closure of MSN Groups.

Between today and February 21, 2009 nothing will change about the MSN Groups service except that we will remove the option to add more storage to your Group. Other features will remain until the service is shut down and you can use it the same way you do today until the date of closure. Watch the site and your e-mail inbox over the next week as we will post updated information there, including a more detailed outline of your options and next steps.

We appreciate your continued support as we strive to provide you with the highest quality service available. Thank you for using MSN Groups.

Sincerely,    

Alvin    

MSN Groups Technical Support