Archive for May, 2007
May 30, 2007 at 1:06 pm ·
Filed under PR
Microsoft Belux has been looking to find the new ways for reaching developers that they never reach through the “traditional” channels, such as own or 3rd party e-mailing, magazine ads, banners, blogs, etc… They’ve been looking for an advertising system that would be in such a way so that it would really appeal to developers. Together with the guys from McCann Belgium, an ad agency, they came up with an alternative way that they’ve never tried before (at least in Belgium). They’ve decided to do “in-game advertising” for the Defy All Challenges Visual Studio product marketing campaign. If you want to know how that looks like, check out the images below:
The ads are running in the following games: Anarchy Online, Quake Wars, Need For Speed, Trackmania United, Toca Race Car, Splinter Cell 4, Crackdown, Ghost Recon AW, Rainbow Six, True Crime NY and Def Jam.
Since I have front row tickets to this campaign, I’ll try to post about the results as well, if I can. I’m very interested in seeing if this approach works.
May 29, 2007 at 3:15 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife
It’s been a long and busy weekend, and I’ve been thrown into work again as soon as I arrived at the office. I had to turn in my commitments today and line up the things I wanted to accomplish. I think I did pretty well for my first six months here at Microsoft. One of the commitments of FY07 was that I’d complete the entire New Hire Readiness Program, and I still have 13 hours of classes to go. So, I decided to do one every day from now on, and spread it out so I’ll have them all done by the end of the fiscal year.
Today’s class is about Microsoft’s End User Customer Idemnification Policy. A lot of heavy words. I’ll try to explain what it means.
- Customers don’t want to be caught in the middle of an intellectual property legal dispute. Many Microsoft customers have asked about ways of reducing their risk.
- Microsoft has expanded intellectual property (IP) indemnification for end-user customers—it is really an indemnification commitment.
- Microsoft’s commitment means that Microsoft will stand behind its end-user customers if there is an intellectual property dispute involving our client and server software.
It’s because intellectual property disputes can come in many forms. Microsoft’s indemnification commitment includes coverage for most patent, copyright, trade secret, and trademark disputes. It basically means that if someone alleges that software you licensed from Microsoft infringes on their intellectual property rights, then Microsoft will help protect you from the legal costs and liability associated with the dispute.
If you are interested in the details, you can find them at http://www.microsoft.com/indemnification.
Tomorrow I’ll take the Vista course and try to finish it within the estimated 4 hours, although my colleagues say it’ll take a lot more. You’ll see me blogging as I get along with it. I’ll share all the useful stuff I find in it.
May 25, 2007 at 3:56 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife, Mix Event
I went to Mix07 in Las Vegas and took quite a lot of pictures. I didn’t had time to put them all online at once, but today I uploaded the last batch, setting the counter to 170. I had a great time in Vegas. It’s everything everyone has ever said it would be. Juuuust like in the movies. I’d love to go back once. Or twice. It really is a world on its own. Below are some impressions:
See the set on Flickr
May 25, 2007 at 3:36 pm ·
Filed under MicroLife
Yesterday I hosted a small event in Diegem, Brussels. Paul Foster from the UK, Lori Grosland from Germany, Benjamin Gauthey from France, Barbora Zychova from the Czech Republic and me have put our minds together to discuss a few topics.
Benjamin gave a Microsoft Popfly demo and told us about his experiences and close contact with the developers. He gave us tips to do demos and mashups ourselves. You can expect a few experiments to appear on the blog here soon.
Paul explained how he reached out to communities and measured results in the UK, how to tie as many Live services as possible to a campaign or event, to maximize impact and to create a push towards the Live platform. He also talked about the Lego League which he is very enthusiastic about. Lego League introduces children around the world to the fun and experience of solving real-world problems by applying math, science, and technology.
I explained how Second Life works, what it is and what Microsoft is doing there.
I set up a demo-time for Media Center, by one of the local vendors. Joffrey Vaassen showed off the goodies and changes in the interface, the new satellite receiver, the things that were going to be included in the new release (NDA stuff, sorry). He explained us things about iptv and so on. During this session, everyone could ask questions about the integration, compatibility, differences with older versions… and so on. Pretty cool stuff is coming, I can tell you that :-)
The last hours Paul, Benjamin and I gave tips and tricks and best practices to Lori and Barbora. We explained about the role of EE, about commitments, about what to pay attention to, which aliases to subscribe to, why you should also set up an English blog next to the one you have in your local language… Lori and Barbora are pretty new to the role (newer than I am, at least) and they have a very interesting background. Barbora has been working as a presenter/journalist for the past 12 years, both for Australian as for a Czech television station called Prima. She had her own shows and everything. I think we can learn a lot from her experiences. Lori came from Adobe, and she has a pretty techy background… she loves developer tools and creating things, so I think she’ll be coming up with cool stuff to demo soon.
We decided we needed server space, so we would have a location where we, European EE’s could store presentations and demos so we would have an shared archive to tap from. We will, for each other, translate the presentations to English if they are in our own language, so they become portable and locally implementable, which could save a lot of work.
In the evening we had a team dinner at a cozy local restaurant next to the MS building, we had a great time, got to know each other and know about each other’s specialities. We got close enough to know that we could ask each other anything whenever help is needed, and that was exactly the purpose of this small summit. Yey.
Pictures:
May 25, 2007 at 10:27 am ·
Filed under PR, Buzz
Today Microsoft announced its partnership with Facebook. With this new partnership, both companies will work together to empower the Facebook users to develop upon the Facebook social graph. Microsoft will distribute the Facebook Developer Toolkit. The FDT was developed by Microsoft to wrap the Facebook API into a managed component. Through this component, developers now will be able to drag ‘n drop a Facebook component onto the component tray in Visual C# Express , Visual Basic Express and Visual Web Developer (for both Whidbey and Orcas). Users will be provided all the source code, sample applications including a WPF app and detail documentation. Along with all this, developers will also have all the source code to everything.
There’s also going to be a co-branded landing page on the Facebook developer website. At this site, visitors will be able to see Microsoft Visual Studio Express and Microsoft Popfly links. Additionally, a series of new pages were developed called Showcase on the Visual Studio Express site.
Microsoft Popfly Support has been developed as well. Facebook users who have little to no development experience can create simple quick mash-ups with the Facebook block.
Facebook has 40 billion page hits a month and has an open registration (which is growing 100,000 new users a day or 3% a week). It has 24+ million active users.
May 18, 2007 at 12:51 pm ·
Filed under PR, Community, Photography
Today we launch the Korean Gyeongbok Palace Photosynth collection, the culmination of an unprecedented buzz promotion linking photo enthusiasts to emerging Microsoft technologies. It is the first Photosynth collection ever constructed in partnership with professional and hobbyist photographers in Asia. Over 4,000 photos were contributed by the Korean community via a Windows Live promotion in just a few short weeks (and 12 positive press articles there reaching over 5 million at the promotion launch). After a lot of hard work at Live Labs, it’s ready to be shared with the world. MS Korea will be sending press releases to key media in addition to engaging top bloggers.
Gyeongbokgung (Gyeongbok Palace) is one of South Korea’s finest national treasures. Originally built in 1394, it is the largest palace of the Joseon Dynasty. At its height in the mid 1800’s, it covered 330 buildings and over 4 million square feet as the grand home for the royal family. Millions of tourists each year walk the stone foundations for a closer look at the ceremonial facilities, dragons and wooden canopies over the throne.
Quote from Adam Sheppard, Live Labs:
“We were very excited to work with MSN Korea to create a synth of Gyeongbok Palace. Koreans are widely recognized as being early adopters and innovators with photography and web technology and it was a fantastic opportunity to see how users photographs could really bring the palace to life. We found ourselves spending hours exploring the environment, zooming in on the fine details, and flying over the building and square. It really is a unique way of exploring a location in tremendous detail, giving people a chance to imagine what it would be like to stand in the shoes of somebody who was actually there.”
Professional photographer Kang Tae-Gu provided valuable support in taking detailed shots of the palace for construction of the collection. I must say I’m pretty impressed about the quality of the pictures and the overall look and feel of the virtual walk-through. Amazing how many pictures have been sent in, and it comes to show that with a little help of the right communities, you can create and share experiences that are really remarkable.
See this collection
Live Labs Photosynth Team Blog
May 18, 2007 at 12:26 pm ·
Filed under PR, Music
This week our MSN teams (re)launched http://liveearth.msn.com, the exclusive online destination for Live Earth: The Concert for a Climate in Crisis. Live Earth will culminate on 7/07/07 with a global concert on seven continents with venues that include the US, UK, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, China, Australia, and Turkey. Live Earth is much more than a concert – it’s designed to be a catalyst event to coalesce a worldwide community of people who share a single environmental vision and mission: to convert concern to action.
Through our partnership and sponsorship of Live Earth Microsoft is playing a critical role in the top entertainment event of the year, but we’re also positioning MSN at the forefront of news media coverage by delivering a rich media experience that educates, informs and inspires change. This event is important to our business because our investment in Live Earth helps MSN reach new audiences and showcase our media experiences including break-through video, rich-media content from credible sources, and the powerful integration of Windows Live Search, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, and Windows Live Spaces. Ultimately, this event will help us build a deeply engaged community that recognizes MSN as a leader in entertainment and a great resource for “green” information.
More than 150 of the world’s hottest artists will perform for Live Earth, including Madonna, whose new song “Hey You” is available for free download exclusively for seven days from the MSN Live Earth site. Madonna wrote the song, inspired by the Live Earth movement, and she will perform it live during Live Earth UK.
As the exclusive online destination for Live Earth, MSN is pleased to offer this song in conjunction with Madonna and is proud to donate 25 cents for each of the first 1 million downloads to the Alliance for Climate Protection, in support of Live Earth.
Cool.
May 14, 2007 at 7:48 pm ·
Filed under PR, MicroLife, Live Services
So, it’s been a few hours now, we’ve just returned from the walking dinner and we’re now in the control room. Pieter just flashed his site on the three big main screens, the greatest ego-trip a blogger can have. Live blogging on a massive public display… not bad at all.
In the course of the event, the people from Vacature showed off their SecondLife island, where they’ve built and launched Career City. They have a 1000 Linden dollar bonus for everyone who puts their CV online, and they’re about to host the first ever ‘after work’ party in the game. The Career City can easily be found through the in-game search by typing ‘Vacature References’ in the search field. It’s a huge city with at this time a low population, but it’s far from launched. It just kicked off, it still needs some tweaking and a lot of ‘word of mouth’ marketing. Besides in-game searching for jobs, they’ll also host speaker keynotes and companies can do presentations in one of the many many conference rooms.
The coolest thing I’ve seen in Career City were the interactive billboards with a dazzling response time from the server. Searching for jobs at Microsoft, it only took a few seconds to get at least seven results. Too bad I’m not looking for a job anymore ;-)
The final stage of the event… recruiters are starting to get dizzy… typical call center things. The short breaks are being used to quickly check a southern holiday destination or to make a call to the kids to check if they actually had dinner and did their homework. It’s pretty exhausting to do job interviews over Live Messenger, especially when you have about ten in a row. Overall I’d say this would more likely be the exception on the rule. Remote interviews aren’t the same as real life interviews. You can’t really look someone in the eyes, you can’t really see what they’re doing off-screen. But in some particular cases, I can imagine it could be a benefit to have a remote interview, like I’ve said in the previous post. If you’re working abroad, if it’s difficult to go on a job interview because of the current job situation you’re in… then a Messenger interview might very well be the perfect first step, but obviously it would lead to a real life, face to face meeting. People don’t hire people remotely. The entire purpose of HR is that they’ve mastered the skills of ’sensing’ and ‘feeling’ if somebody is a good worker or just a player who wants to buy new tires for his tuned car to then afterwards return to the goodlife of unemployed vacation time.
May 14, 2007 at 5:39 pm ·
Filed under PR, MicroLife, Live Services
First ideas about applying for a job over Live Messenger:
- Do not put a sexy model as a display picture. Unless you are the sexy model.
- Turn off the emoticons. For Christ’s sake. Turn them off. Playboy bunnies flashing in all kinds of colors every time you type ‘yes’… ummm not a very good idea. Thumbs up when you type ‘ok’… mmmmmaybe. But really… off is better.
- Try not to have song titles displayed in your name. I’ve seen things like “You don’t mean a thing to me” or “F*ck you right back”… that’s not really going to bring you very far
- Cut back on the (b)(l)(b) and {_/’\_} decorations in the name. Please.
- Mind the background if you’re camming. Take down the centerfolds. Really. It helps.
- Try to leave your girlfriend out of this. Don’t put things like “I’d love to stay and chat, but you’re a total b*tch” or “Baby you’re my everything, I love you sooooooooooooooo much (l)(l)(l) in your nickname. Now’s NOT a good time.
- Be firm, quick to reply and present yourself correctly. Make an elevator pitch to promote you. Cut the crap, get to business.
- Have a curriculum ready to upload, it can only help to create a more professional impression of yourself
Messenger conversations are very often between friends, in some cases between colleagues and in a more limited scenario between a company representative and a client. To make the switch from personal Live Messenger to professional Live Messenger requires quite some thinking. Which words trigger emoticons? Can you turn them off fast? Just like in real-time job interviews, the first impression is very important. How professional are you willing to look?
May 14, 2007 at 5:13 pm ·
Filed under PR, MicroLife, Live Services
Today, Monday, Live Messenger in cooperation with Vacature (a Belgian-based job recruiting network) we will have the first Virtual Application Fair. More than 100 HR managers have gathered in the Belgacom Surfhouse, where they will have a PC, webcam and headset available to them, and a USB stick to take home CVs if they are being wired by the jobseeker. They will have a schedule of candidates who have registered prior to the event and those candidates will have the opportunity to go for a virtual application chat with these HR managers. It’s a world’s first, it’s never been done before. 1500 people will apply for a job at the same time, to all these employers who’re sitting in rows, one team next to another. And all of this, live over Live Messenger.
A pretty interesting concept, I think, that actually makes a few future scenarios a bit more realistic. A lot of people do have a hard time already taking some time off from work to apply for a job elsewhere. Remote job applying would make things a lot more easy. If you’re working from home, temporarily abroad or a digital homeless guy roaming from hotspot to hotspot… there’s no more excuses to avoid the conversation.
I’m here together with Pieter from Mess.be, the most popular Messenger site of the world. We’re covering the event together and they’re going to hook us up to the big screens on stage so the employers and job agencies can see how live blogging works. To us, it’s just one letter after the other being added in a form field, hitting the occasional backspace button to correct typos, but apparently to a lot of other people there’s still some magic in seeing phrases form paragraphs and hitting a ‘publish’ button at the end. Ahh, where has the time gone to?
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