Monday, September 27, 2004 1:32 PM
I happened to dive into the Microsoft blogosphere over the weekend and read with interest a notation that it now has close to 1000 different weblogs in production. That has to be tops in the world for a single company.
From personal experience, I can say that I have found Microsoft's weblogs useful. I subscribe to an assortment of different Microsoft employee weblogs covering topics of interest to me. On numerous occasions, I have found and utilized relevant information contained within.
Judging from the volume of official Microsoft email newsletters and reports that I receive every week, I am sure that much of the information contained in the weblogs is available at other places within the beast that is the Microsoft.com website. But try and find it. I sometimes wonder that if I added up all of the minutes I have spent searching the Microsoft knowledge base and similar, how many total work hours I have expended. I would bet the number is astounding.
So, for me, the Microsoft bloggers serve in part as reference librarians or tour guides to the world of Microsoft. Indeed, I have discovered a number of resources within the Microsoft.com world via its blogs that I highly doubt I would have ever found on my own.
Say what you will about Microsoft, but as its almost-1000 weblogs shows, it is not asleep at the wheel on the use of weblog technologies to connect and communicate with its customers. And, I am guessing this is just the start of what it will do with the medium. If you are interested in technical topics and want to tap into the Microsoft blogosphere, here's a link to get started.