Let's start things off: A little intro
The big idea here is to examine Microsoft's [relatively] recent adoption of blogs as tools to communicate from a Mass Media perspective. We'll get to theories and such a little later on but, for now, let's establish the fact that Microsoft is indeed pushing blogs as a tool to communicate with developers who currently or could potentially use their technology.
Q: Is Microsoft really trying to use a blogs? In large numbers?
Reference 1: http://blogs.msdn.com/
Statistics available at the time of this post:
Blogs - 572
Posts - 11297
Articles - 242
Comments - 35617
Trackbacks - 5648
(blogs.msdn.com, 2004)
572 Blogs!? How many people work at the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN)?
Reference 2: http://weblogs.asp.net/
Again, more stats:
Blogs - 991
Posts - 30395
Articles - 691
Comments - 72684
Trackbacks - 11466
(weblogs.asp.net, 2004)
Some of these may be duplicates but, not more than 572!
Reference 3: http://channel9.msdn.com
Is this website a blog? Maybe. It could also be merely a portal intended to drive developers to content (blogs) authored by established authorities. Take a look at the explanation of the site's purpose
Channel 9 started as a personal story from one of us about fear of flying. Lenn realized after years of dealing with it, that it was actually a fear of the unknown. The fear was conquered through learning. The more transparency into what it took to fly a plane, the more the fear went away. Lenn got to know pilots who flew planes everyday, and every time he flew he turned on Channel 9 on the in-flight audio system to listen in to the cockpit.
We think developers need their own Channel 9, a way to listen in to the cockpit at Microsoft, an opportunity to learn how we fly, a chance to get to know our pilots. Five of us in Redmond are crazy enough to think we just might learn something from getting to know each other. Were we wrong? Time will tell.
Join in, and have a look inside our cockpit and help us fly the plane.
(channel9.msdn.com, 2004)
The entire Channel9 website is syndicated via RSS. While not a traditional blog, it could be a community maintained blog micro-portal. The site was launched in April 2004.
A: In short, Microsoft is using blogs in large numbers to communicate...exactly what they're trying to communicate we don't know yet. We'll get there.
Q: How long has this been going on?
A: A small sample of the [many] blogs on MSDN reveals that many have archives going back to mid-2003. Couple this with the recent launch of Channel9 and this effort could be considered on going and mounting.
2 Comments:
Just wanted to give you a bit of background on the situation.
The concerted effort towards blogging at Microsoft started on two fronts. First, there was blogs.gotdotnet.com, which was run off Chris Anderson's BlogX software. Each weblog was hosted individually, and none of them were aggregated together.
The other started at www.dotnetweblogs.com, which was originally a community of non-Microsoft voices that were trying out Scott Watermasysk's .Text blog engine. I started blogging there in February 2003, and I was one of the first 120 bloggers on the site. The same month I started, we were joined by Rob Howard and Scott Guthrie, the guys driving the ASP.NET strategy. For a long time, however, the DotNetWeblogs were made up of industry and community leaders who had active voices among the community, and the community grew around them.
So Don Box and cohorts were blogging on blogs.gotdotnet.com, guys like Chris Anderson were blogging on thy're own personal sites, and the .NET Weblogs were thriving. People who were unknown in the community before, like myself, grew respect in the community, and many reliable voices joined the fray.
After some time, Rob Howard struck a deal with Scott Watermasysk to move the whole dotnetweblogs.com community over to http://weblogs.asp.net. This was a key time for blogging at Microsoft. Later, Watermasysk & Co. worked with Microsoft to move the bloggers off of blogs.gotdotnet.com and into this new "semi-official" Microsoft home.
At this point, something interesting happened. Confised and frustrated with the growing din of Microsoft voices, many people left weblogs.asp.net for greener pastures. Many went to their own domain names and use the .Text engine to set up their own blog. Still more moved to geekswithblogs.net and other such communities, hoping to regain the community-centric focus they once had. Others, like myself, dedicated to the community, stayed on and tried to find a new draw among the din of 'Softies. The main feed (the aggregated home page) started moving by faster and faster every day. The community grew, but visibility was sacrificed.
Then one day, Microsoft announced blogs.msdn.com, which would be where all Microsoft employees blogged. After initial excitement from the non-Microsoft community, people were confused that there was not more foresight in the situation. Blogs.msdn.com was nothing more than a mirroring of all the Microsoft bloggers in a new domain name... all Microsoft blogs would still exist at weblogs.asp.net as well.
So, to assist you in your studies, blogs.msdn.com are not people that work for the Microsoft Developer Network. It is all of the Microsoft employees (and team blogs, but we'll save THAT discussion for another time) that blog using the centralized .Text blog system. Statistics-wise, the stats at blogs.msdn.com are only a subset of those at weblogs.asp.net. You can subtract the MSDN stats from the ASP.NET stats to see what percentage of those posts are from non-Microsoft bloggers.
In compiling your statistics, you need to check out www.longhornblogs.com. This is a place where several Microsoft employees blog about the next version of Windows. They are not aggregated into blogs.msdn.com, but the MS ranks over there are growing as well.
At any rate, sorry for the long explanation, but I figured since this is a progect for college, it would help to have some background on the matter.
I almost forgot. In terms of a blogging strategy, I'll be frank. Microsoft doesn't have a coherent strategy for blogging. Right now they are doing whatever works, and that's fine. At some point, someone will need to step up to the table with a clear vision for how this thing will be organized. The way it is now, with all Microsoft technologies aggregated into one place, with no separation or taxonomy, will not scale out to 55,000 employees, and cannot continue much longer.
Post a Comment
<< Home