Blog What? Part 1

If we accept the notion that Microsoft is indeed in the midst of a big push terms of blogging it raises a series of questions.

What is the purpose behind all the blogging?

What is being written in these blogs? Does is jive with the purpose?

What are some of the obstacles Microsoft faces?

Is the effort having success?

At the most basic level, the purpose behing all the Microsoft blogging is clearly economic. Microsoft is a for-profit organization that constantly seeks to generate hype, gain market share, and 'lead the industry'. Are blog authors writing posts asking people to buy Microsoft products? Definitely not. According to an interview conducted with Robert Scoble (Windows Technology Evangelist and prominent blogger):

"...trying to give people a view into Microsoft that they haven’t had before."

(Greenlee, 2004)

Scoble goes on to talk about how folks outside Silicon Valley and Redmond often see Microsoft as a monolithic black box. I'll go out on a limb and say that some people even see Microsoft as the reincarnated "Evil Empire".

Given Mr. Scoble's apparent goal (to give people an eye into the company) we should take a look at some of his posts. Just prior to this being written there was a flurry of activity in news media focused on the pending demise of the TabletPC. Interestingly, in the midst of and in the aftermath of this media flurry there was an equally intense barrage of posts on Scoble's blog about the TabletPC. A quick look at a few of these posts:

Larry teaches how to program on the TabletPC: A link to info on how to author applications on the TabletPC.

Ed wants to be counted in the TabletPC LoveFest: This article starts out "Who loves their TabletPC? Me Me Me.
'nuff said

And a day later, more of the same: More love for the Tablet PC

Culminating in: 25 things to do with a TabletPC

Is Scoble communicating facts about the TabletPC? He started off with some. An article explaining how to write code the device. After that, he seemed to step into his role as an evangelist.

Is Scoble helping to build community with these posts? There were 10 comments made in response to the 4 posts with no additional substantial contribution by Scoble himself. In fact, in 1 post, 3 messages were left by one commenter. The first of these began, "Robert, your friend Arjun here again...".

This seems to represent a technology (Scoble's Blog) extending an existing relationship. We shouldn't misunderstand this blog. Scoble has a large weblog following. Some of his posts elicit dozens of comments. So, what's going on in this series of posts? Is Scoble agenda setting? In this case I don't think so. The media has set Scoble's agenda by publishing a series of articles on the TabletPC. Scoble could be guiding his followers to specific information about TabletPCs. In this case, Scoble appears to be acting as a gate-keeper to information about the TabletPC for his readers.