Microsoft to publicise new Windows operating system through bloggers

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 06-May-05, 09:05

LONDON - The involvement of blogging in marketing has taken a step up with the news that Microsoft is recruiting a team of bloggers to help generate a buzz for the next generation of its Windows operating system.

Microsoft is planning to release a trial version of the system, which has been nicknamed Longhorn, this summer. The full version is likely to emerge in late 2006.

It is looking for 20 bloggers from its community of developers, to whom it will give access to Longhorn in return for signing non-disclosure agreements.

Dubbed Team 99, the recruits will "tell us where we're screwing up and what we're doing well", according to Microsoft's employer Robert Scoble, who writes a blog about the company.

The software company's founder Bill Gates has credited blogs for the job they can do in getting messages out to a wide community, and has written three of his own.

However, he is still cautious about them. In a recent interview with Business Week he said: "You used to have these spokespeople, and you could call them together in a room and say, 'Make sure you don't give out the earnings before we're supposed to'. Well, now you have thousands of spokespeople, where speaking off the cuff is part of the whole charm of the thing. So you'll get into issues."

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