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August 11, 2004

From Blog to Live

Recently, I have been following Scoble's blog. He works for Microsoft, as an evangelist for their technology (yes, that is a real position at Microsoft).

A few months ago, he started talking about how he had bought an XBox and was amazed by the online play with his son who was in another state.

"Cool" I thought, but filed it away in the back of my mind. Then, Scoble starts talking about Channel9, the new developer community that is a behind-the-scenes look at Microsoft.

"Even better" I though. So I start watching the Channel9 site for news and interesting info.

About two weeks ago, Channel9 does a series on the XBox developers. A Channel9 "series" usually consists of video (shot by Scoble) of the developers who write the actual product. In each segment, actual XBox Live developers were interviewed.

For those who don't know, Live is an online service for the XBox that lets you play games with other players via the Internet. You can also talk with people while you are playing via a headset you wear.

"Wow" I though. Microsoft is doing some pretty cool stuff with their XBox Live service. I had known about Live since it came out, but kind of dismissed it as a cheap service to make money. But then I started looking at the games the developers were talking about. And reading about them.

Next thing I know, I'm sold. I went out and bought an XBox, got hooked up to the Live service, and have been playing Rainbow Six 3 - Black Arrow and having a blast. The ability to talk with the person you are playing with or against is amazing. It adds another dimension to the game when you can tell your team "I am watching the door on the left" while they go in the door on the right. Very cool.

So there you have it. Who says marketing through blogs doesn't work?

Posted by Phil at August 11, 2004 10:20 PM

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Comments

Very, very cool. Can you do Bond 007 that way? Now that, I could get in to.

Posted by: duenorth [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 13, 2004 07:03 PM

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