Edit: More Information

Last night I intended to bring a close to this project. Pressed for time, busy at work, busy at home, etc, etc. Dare Obasanjo wrote me again today and provided some really interesting facts. Since we're all busy people and he has taken the time to provide some good insight I think I should add what he's said to my work.

As usual, deciding to add Dare's contributions to the project raises some questions. They stem from the fact that this project is an "echo in the echo chamber". What is the best way to go back and add new information to what I've done so far? Traditionally, when writing a paper, an author would just go back and modify what they've already written. Is that appropriate in this format? If I go back and change what I've already written does that disrupt the narrative? This seems an especially important question as this work is 'public' and many people have certainly read (and commented on) the work as it appears rather than when it's complete (as they would if this were a paper).

I've decided to append new information to what I've already written. I don't know if this is the best way to go about it or not.

Dare Obasanjo provided me with some very thorough information on the history of blogging at Microsoft, his role in it, and some usage statistics on his msdn blog and his personal blog. I won't quote from it. Instead, I urge a complete reading.

What Dare says would seem to give some credibility to the questions I raised last night about my initial assumptions. That being, there is not a directed effort at Microsoft (or MSDN) to use blogs to communicate with the larger Microsoft Technology Community. Instead, the blogging stems from a desire on Microsoft's part to increase the level of communication with customers and users and individual decisions on the part of Microsoft employees (or people otherwise affiliated with Microsoft) to use blogs due to their popularity.

Dare also gives some insight into the traffic his blogs receive. While this certainly does not represent comprehensive research it is interesting and represents the best information I can obtain given time restrictions. Dare has identified about 1000 unique IP addresses. This is a good guess at the number of people reading his posts. As I said, this is not comprehensive. It would be very interesting (and nearly impossible) to know who these people are and how reading Dare's blog affects their work. Asking readers to complete a survey might be helpful. Online surveys are problematic at best from a Communication Research perspective but, it would be a relatively quick way to test the waters. Microsoft does conduct surveys on it's website. I wonder if anyone at MSDN or MSR would be interested in surveying blog readers?

Eventhough there's not a coordinated effort at Microsoft to use blogs to interact with interested parties the use of blogs has reached a point where it might as well be. Revisiting the idea of perception, it sure looks like there is an intentional effort. In spite of the fact that this blog-phenom is an animal all its own the opportunity to discern an intentional effort will cause some people to discard the blog activity as yet another effort to conquer the world (however unfair that may be). Still, what sort of person would come to that conclusion? Dare hints at open source advocates in his post. Are these the people that Microsoft bloggers are seeking to influence? I think it depends on who the blog author is. Blogs like Scoble's (largely evangelistic) may acknowledge these people exist and attempt to expose them to information they may not normally be exposed to. To more technically oriented blogs like Dare's and many many others these open source advocates may matter far less.

To sum this up [again], the vast scale of Microsoft-related blogging on such a wide variety of topics certainly opens the door to an increased level of communication with interested parties. It's probably too early to say whether or not it's successful. The best indications I have (largely from Dare Obasanjo) are that it certainly may be. Keep in mind, the level of Microsoft-related blog activity has apparently just ramped up in 2004.

There would seem to be a lot room for future research using more traditional Communication research techniques. Personally, I would be interested in conducting or participating in more. I wonder, at what point will people within Microsoft assign enough importance to what is going on to conduct this research? Is it even possible for someone outside Microsoft to get sufficient access to authors, statistics, and readers to coduct the work?

All good questions.

Finally, I can't thank Dare Obasanjo and Robert Scoble enough for (intentionally or unintentionally) helping my work.