John Martin's Blog : TechNet

New Silverlight 2 App Visualizes Social Bookmarking on MSDN and TechNet

John Martin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:55:00 GMT

Ever wonder what people are actually bookmarking using MSDN and TechNet Social ? Check out the Ticker and find out! With the Ticker, you can quickly see what’s being bookmarked by the technical community right now, today, yesterday, or over the past week....(read more)

5 Ways to Get More Out of Your MSDN and TechNet Library Experience

John Martin — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:16:00 GMT

The online libraries on MSDN and TechNet are among the most used sites on our network. Here's some great ways to get the most out of your Library experience. Bookmark it: Create your own personal library and share it using MSDN Social and TechNet Social...(read more)

VORT-EX08: The Swirling Mass You Actually Want to Get Sucked Into

John Martin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:19:00 GMT

The MSDN and TechNet teams recently helped to launch VORT - EX08 (Virtual Online Remix- Total Experience), an online “virtual” conference for IT professionals, developers, and designers in the Europe. There are cool virtual booths for both MSDN and TechNet....(read more)

Create Customized Social Feeds with MSDN and TechNet Social

John Martin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:20:00 GMT

Thousands of technical professionals worldwide are now using MSDN and TechNet Social and Forums to bookmark and tag online resources. And it's easy to create customized and dynamic feeds from our social platform to publish social content by person, tag,...(read more)

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)

Web 2.0 Expo Insight of the Day: It’s Simple - We Should All Quit Our Jobs!

John Martin — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:00:00 GMT

Comments on keynotes and sessions from Web 2.0 Expo in NYC, including Gary Vaynerchuk, hyperkinetic and super-frank keynoter; Jonah Peretti of BuzzFeed who revealed to us the previously unknown size and power of the “Bored at Work Network” (BWN) which evidently determines what “goes viral” and what does not; and Lane Becker who kicked off my day with a session on how Customer Service is the New Marketing, and suggested that we all act as “concierges” to our customers. ...(read more)

3 Insights from Day 1 of the Web 2.0 Expo

John Martin — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:43:00 GMT

Today was the first real day of the Web 2.0 Expo in NYC . Several of us from the MSDN and TechNet team are attending . I attended a session on Search Engine and Social Media Optimization (see Rob Veliz's blog on our SEO efforts) and Katie Larson reported...(read more)

On Facebook? Become a Fan of MSDN and TechNet

John Martin — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:04:00 GMT

One of the things we did last week when we launched our new social application was to create new Facebook pages for MSDN and TechNet. As a fan, you can connect with other fans from around the world, and get the latest updates about our sites. The fan pages might just also be the first place people will begin to learn about v2.0 of our social app and other new things like the next generation of Dev and TechCenters....(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)

Tales from the MSDN Bar and TechNet Lounge at TechEd Australia

John Martin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:31:00 GMT

Some funny and interesting insights and photos coming out of TechEd Australia . See.. Chris Slemp's blog for comments on the keynote and attendee feedback on the MSDN and TechNet social strategy ... ...and the Microsoft Australia TechNet blog for how...(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.

New and Improved MSDN and TechNet Search Impresses Devs and IT Pros

John Martin — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:26:00 GMT

We've been working hard on our sites' search app.

Recently we asked a group of developers and IT professionals to make it their default search for a while.

Find out what they said and how to get the most out of MSDN and TechNet search on Chris Slemp's blog.

New Developer and TechCenters for SQL Server 2008 now online at MSDN and TechNet

John Martin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:11:00 GMT

Fresh technical content for SQL Server 2008 is now online at MSDN and TechNet:

New SQL Server 2008 TechCenter

New SQL Server 2008 Developer Center

Check out Chris Kilbourn's (Lead Site Manager, TechNet) blog for more great SQL Server 2008 links.