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Microsoft and Web 2.0 Stuff

By Nick Hodge | June 10, 2009

Like Michael Rees, Kath­ryn Green­hill asked me to list “web 2.0″ things that Microsoft has avail­able to provide some bal­ance to a Mur­doch Uni­ver­sity event.

By web 2.0, Kath­ryn meant: “To me, Microsoft plays really well in the large cor­por­ate ap space and is very good at that … but if I want to show people about the con­ver­sa­tion, re-mix, open access, inter­op­er­able web, then MS is not the first port of call…”

I can only agree with Kathryn’s state­ment. Microsoft hides all its cool web 2.0 things under a bushel. In fact, the prob­lem prob­ably is that the cool­ness are hid­den under many bushels, all over its web foot­print. But hey, I am not from mar­ket­ing; I am a mere Pro­fes­sional Geek. That is also why these lis­ted are free. Some are even Free-as-in-Freedom, too.

I think it import­ant that people get to hear, see and try altern­at­ives before default­ing to “the known and safe.” And yes, I real­ise can work both ways.

Another per­spect­ive, and my own opin­ion, is that Microsoft should not seek to do everything on the web. For instance, cre­at­ing a “Microsoft Twit­ter Ulti­mate Edi­tion 2010″ is stu­pid. Nor should Microsoft seek to pur­chase every cool com­pany that pops on the web. Again, that is my opin­ion. And I am the low­est on the low of the totem pole; a.k.a Indi­vidual Con­trib­utor or Sac­rifical Unnamed Ensign (ref: Star Trek)

Here is an edited ver­sion of my email response; draf­ted quickly and by no means exhaust­ive. If you have other cool examples, just post a com­ment and I’ll update the list.

Topics: microsoft, web2.0 | No Comments »

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