Microsoft's Channel 9 gets social with developers

IDG News Service - Microsoft Corp. has quietly expanded its Microsoft Developer Network with a Web site that combines a host of social networking technologies in a move to improve communications with outside software developers.

The Web site, called Channel 9, uses weblogs, mobile blogs, wikis and forums as well as other technologies to reach out to developers. The site was created by a group of five engineers and technology evangelists at Microsoft; it was named after the United Airlines in-flight audio channel that allows passengers to listen in on cockpit communications.

"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," a welcome message on the Channel 9 Web site states. "Five of us in Redmond are crazy enough to think we just might learn something from getting to know each other."

Weblogs, or blogs, are personal-journal-type entries on a Web page, mobile blogs are Web pages with pictures taken using a camera phone, and wikis are user-editable Web pages.

Channel 9 is about creating a new level of communication between Microsoft and developers -- beyond the news groups, blogs and the press releases, the site's creators write on a "Who We Are" page. The site is not meant as tool for marketing, public relations or sales-lead generation, according to a list of site rules.

Microsoft has been keen to increase its dialogue with developers. Earlier this year the company added blogs published by its employees to the Microsoft Developer Network, its main site for developers.

This week, Microsoft is hosting a select group of developers and users, those who have been named MVPs -- or Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals. Over 2,500 people have been awarded MVP status; about half are developers, and 1,500 are attending the MVP Summit in Seattle and Redmond, according to Microsoft.

Last year, Microsoft encouraged the creation of a blogging community around its Professional Developers Conference and quietly launched a blogging service called TheSpoke as part of Microsoft's Academic Developer initiative targeted at tech-savvy people in their teens and 20s.