John Martin's Blog : Microsoft

Web 2.0 Expo Day 3: Why Tim O’Reilly wants you to Stop Throwing Sheep!

John Martin — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:42:00 GMT

Tim O’Reilly put everything in perspective for us this morning by contrasting the current mega-problems of the world (disease, poverty, hunger, slavery even!) with developers' apparent passion for Facebook apps like the one where you can throw sheep ....(read more)

NOW LIVE: Microsoft's New Social App for MSDN, TechNet, and Expression Sites

John Martin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:52:00 GMT

In May, we released a preview of our social bookmarking application. Today, we released v1.0 of social bookmarking for MSDN, TechNet, and Expression. Renamed "Social" (e.g., "TechNet Social"), v1.0 offers social bookmarking and provides several important new capabilities. ...(read more)

New Social Features Integrated into Redesigned MSDN Dev Centers

John Martin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:25:00 GMT

Building on the new designs that were launched in May , the MSDN team is beginning to release a new round of Dev Center design updates - starting with the Visual Basic Developer Center . Developer Centers are mini-sites on MSDN focused on specific developer...(read more)

New Podcast: How MSDN is Opening Up to the Developer Community

John Martin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:56:00 GMT

Yesterday, I had a chance to talk with John Bristowe (Developer Advisor, Microsoft Canada) about the changes we are making to MSDN, including our social vision and platform. He recorded our chat and now its a podcast you can get from his blog . Have a...(read more)

At TechEd Australia? Stop by and Meet Us!

John Martin — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:00:00 GMT

TechEd Australia is next week! And, our own Shanna Del Conte and Chris Slemp ... ...will be there to meet you, talk with you, show you how we are opening up the MSDN and TechNet sites to the technical community, and get your input. If you are at the event,...(read more)

Microsoft is Planning Much More Than Just Social Bookmarking

John Martin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:16:00 GMT

Our vision is for the MSDN, TechNet, and Expression sites to be the largest and most vibrant online communities for technical professionals, enabling easy connections to the best resources and most knowledgeable people from Microsoft and the global community. Social bookmarking plays a vital role in that vision, but is just one application amongst a network of increasingly integrated applications - all running on a common social platform....(read more)

PREVIEW: v 1.0 of Social Bookmarking on MSDN and TechNet

John Martin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:45:00 GMT

Microsoft is opening up the MSDN, TechNet, and Expression sites to the community, so that technical professionals can better connect with each other, share knowledge, and succeed. Tagging - and especially social bookmarking - are essential ingredients for making this happen.

Back in May, just before TechEd North America, we released a preview version of our new social bookmarking app for MSDN, for TechNet, and for Expression. Since then, thousands of technical professionals from around the world have begun using it to save their web favorites online, share them with others, see what other technical pros are favoriting, and connect with others.

We also got a lot of great feedback on the app itself (thank you!) and I'm happy to say that in early September, we plan on releasing a full version of the app - v 1.0. Here are some new things to look for:

Subscribe to Tags or People: Find a tag you want to follow? Or a fellow bookmarker that bookmarks really good stuff? With the new app, it will be easy to get an RSS subscription for that tag or person (as in, click the orange button).
Browse & Find Users: Search or browse to find people by their display name (e.g., mine is "johmar") and other criteria.
Import Tools: Recognizing that a lot of people already have favorites saved in their browsers or in other social bookmarking sites, the new app will provide a tool for importing your favorites from Microsoft Internet Explorer and from Delicious.
Bookmarking Widget: If you have your own blog or other website, our new bookmarking widget will make it easy for people to bookmark your pages directly to their social bookmarks on MSDN, TechNet, or Expression. You'll get traffic from Microsoft when your bookmarked page is published in "social feeds" on our global sites.

Availability in 12 Languages: With the September release, the social bookmarking application will be available in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Here is a screenshot of the v 1.0 home page for MSDN:

Questions? Comments? Feedback?

Let us know by commenting on this blog or in the Social Bookmarks Discussion Forum.

251 Ways to Improve Your Visual Studio Productivity...

John Martin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:17:00 GMT

...and 1 really easy way to improve the lives of students in Waveland, Mississippi.

Amazon.com is now accepting pre-orders of Sara Ford's Visual Studio Tips book.

This book is special, because 100% of the royalties go to a scholarship fund for students from Waveland, Mississippi, which was all but wiped out in Hurricane Katrina.

Microsoft is matching the donation of book royalties. Read more about it on Sara Ford's blog.