As you're likely aware, we've had a new RC1 release of Vista, and along with it a RC1 release of .NET Framework 3.0.
I've gone ahead an updated the code for several chapters from the book WCF: Hands On to be compatibile with RC1 changes
You can find the code for Chapter 9 on Custom Behaviors here:
09PerBook.zip (98.58 KB)
As you're likely aware, we've had a new RC1 release of Vista, and along with it a RC1 release of .NET Framework 3.0.
I've gone ahead an updated the code for several chapters from the book WCF: Hands On to be compatibile with RC1 changes
You can find the code for Chapter 6 on Legacy Integration. In addition to ComPlus and MSMQ which were in the book, I've also added another sample that shows how to call WCF from COM. This allows you to empower legacy applications written in Visual Basic, vbscript, Lotus Notes to now consume WCF services.
You can find the updated samples here: Chapter6Code.zip (350.48 KB)
The WCF Hands On book started off as WCF Labs for last years PDC. We started writing it last year, when the docs were pretty sparse in places (as one would expect).
I haven't spent alot of time in the help file until this morning. I'm updating the chapter of the book that deals with COM Interop and needed to double-check something. I shouldn't have been surprised as we're much closer to RTM, but it was *much* more complete and has lots of good info and downloadable samples. There If you haven't look at the doc (or the samples) lately, I'd definately recommend revisiting them - there's also a good POX sample in the RC1 drop as well.
If you want the absolute latest public drop of docs, there was one made on September 15th. It's posted over on netfx3, check it out here:
http://wcf.netfx3.com/files/folders/product_team/entry5854.aspx
As you're likely aware, we've had a new RC1 release of Vista, and along with it a RC1 release of .NET Framework 3.0.
I've gone ahead an updated the code for several chapters from the book WCF: Hands On to be compatibile with RC1 changes
You can find the code for Chapter 5 on Reliable Sessions, Transactions, and Queues here:
05CodeRC1.zip (226.14 KB)
As you're likely aware, we've had a new RC1 release of Vista, and along with it a RC1 release of .NET Framework 3.0.
I've gone ahead an updated the code for several chapters from the book WCF: Hands On to be compatibile with RC1 changes
You can find the code for Chapter 7 on interoperability here:
Code.zip (295.39 KB)
This has nothing to do with WCF, WF, CardSpace or Information Center, but if you have Xbox and an HDTV, this is some cool news coming out of game show in Tokyo:
"In addition, Microsoft announced that its fall software update, scheduled for release later this year, will allow all Xbox 360 consoles around the world to output game and movie content in 1080p resolution. "
If you've read the blog for awhile, you'll know that I moved over to the incubation team in Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group back in August.
My old team is still looking for my replacement, and they're now expanding their search. if you're passionate about CardSpace, Windows Communication Foundation, and Workflow Foundation and working with large Enterprise customers you might be interested in this.
In addition to working with some great technologies, you'll be surrounded by a great group of folks on the Longhorn Server evangelism team, many of whom are authors (or authoring) books on .NETFX 3 or other topics.
James has the full scoop on his blog, check out the link below for details:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jamescon/archive/2006/09/19/761696.aspx
As you're probably aware, I separated Information Center from my main blog to www.informationcenter.tv. In addition to providing a portal for adding more feeds, etc., part of the rationale was that the downloads of the August CTP pushed me over the download limit with my hoster. As this is a personal side project, I went out and found a separate 'free' hoster to handle the bandwidth challenges. Going through my email over the weekend, you can imagine my surprise when I ran across the following:
"I don’t know where to start to share with you the joy and fun on running upgrade!
We are still running testing on our mirror environment. While we think we are getting closer, a few buggy issues pop up and we are still debugging. If everything goes well by EOD tomorrow, then we will start upgrading our production environment next week.
What does it mean to you?
<hosternameomitted/> will need to be out of service for about a week. Our schedule down time is
September 18th 8:00am PST till September 24th 11:00pm PST
If there is any specific information you’d need to pull off from the production environment, please make sure you do that before next Monday."
The hoster has had very little downtime in the last year, which is why I chose it, but they're upgrading all their servers to Office 2007 B2 TR. I've heard they could be online sooner than a week, if so, we'll get it posted sooner.
Watch this space for announcements.
InformationCenter.tv will be going down for a couple of days, it's being moved to a different hoster. It will now be in a hosted Sharepoint server. For those not using Sharepoint, there are a number of great features that I think will make it much easier to modify/maintain. It will also allow me to utilize workflow to handle public additions of new blogs not currently in the directory.
I'll post a note here when the site is back online.
Cheers,
Marc
The blog has been quiet this past week, as between the new job and the new book (Understanding CardSpace), I've been incredibly busy. The next release of InfoCenter has been pushed, it will now be out on Sept. 18th. Now that IE7 has gone to a release candidate, I'm strongly investigating taking a dependency on the RSS functionality provided by it and have it in the next release (hence the long interval).
By leveraging the work those folks have done there, there are three direct benefits - (a) by going with platform componetns for RSS, it removes a disconnect between the InfoCenter stored feeds and the RSS platform stored feeds, (b) the code underneath the RSS functionality has a dedicated group of developers/testers behind it, and (c) it will allow me to focus on some of the next-gen functionality much sooner (i.e. information dvr, community, etc.)
If anyone is strongly opposed to taking a dependency on IE, I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Also, I'm investigating moving parts of this over to CodePlex as a shared source effort to have InfoCenter move along regardless of my personal schedule. Is this something you'd be interested in participating in? If so, let me know (and let me know what your coding background is in)
Cheers,
Marc
People have been asking about Icons to use on their sites for Information Center. Specifically, if you'd like to expose your podcast on your site such that it will launch Information Center. Also, you may want to share a Mix that was created in Information Center.
I spent a few minutes in Photoshop and whipped up the following:
I'd ask you not start using these until the next drop, as the current CTP is very much a alpha/preview where the next drop is something that is more inline with a beta quality CTP.
I spent some time working on Information Center this weekend. I'll be working 1:1 with some folks who've offered to test some of the features that I can't reproduce here (i.e. web proxy issues), and look to post up a new drop late this week.
Splash Screen removed
Non-full screen mode (screen resizing - see screenshot above)
Backward/Forward buttons (see screenshot above)
Integrated Feedback
Integrated Update Notifications
WebProxy Support Added
Change Location of Subscription File/Mix File storage
Current Channel Media Player Enhancements
Modify button and list controls to Left Justify (in anticipation of new layout to debut in September)
Display descriptiion / last published / title on mouse-over in the list controls.
Resolve configuration save issues.
Create RSS feeds for downloads area.
Based on the feedback re: InfoCenter on multiple-monitors and a number of resolutions, I'm going to do a quick rev of InfoCenter this weekend that address the resizing issues, as well as a couple of other tweaks. Expect to see a link here soon to a new drop.
Also expect to see www.informationcenter.tv to expand to allow you to recommend new podcasts for inclusion in the directory, support for feedback/feature requests, and start to become more of a portal.
I'll also be sharing a mix or two so you can see what can be done with mixes (not to mention see some very funny content)
I'll also be adding more channels to the guide, if you've got some suggestions that you think should be in there, definately shoot me a note at mmercuri@informationcenter.tv.
Cheers,
Marc
One thing to point out - if you listen to the audio cast on ARCast, it was recorded while I was in my old role. As I mentioned last week, I recently took a position in another team, which I started on Monday.
I'm now an Architect on the incubation team inside the Platform Strategy Group here at Microsoft. Not sure how much I can talk about specifics about the projects at this point, but what I can say is the work is both challenging and exciting. I started my career in startups l(ong before they were fashionable), and there's just something about incubation that's at my core.
Lots of opportunities to do great stuff, and I'm already impressed with my new manager (in addition to being just a very smart guy I can learn from, he's been both a beta tester and big evangelist for InfoCenter) As things progress, I'll be able to chat more about what we're doing, as I think alot of people who subscribe to this blog would find it interesting.
I was checking it out and found... myself. I did an interview with Ron Jacobs over at ARCast awhile ago, and it's just recently been posted. If you're interested in checking it out, there's a link to ARCast on the featured page in InfoCenter.
Overall, responses have been good (particularly given there's no doc posted yet).
I did want to address a couple of comments -
Two people raised an issue today that's not handled in the CTP - scenarios where you are running on a network that requires a username and password to get to the internet. I'll send a note when this is updated and ready to share. If you're using a proxy to get to the web, this CTP won't work for you unfortunately.As this is not a scenario I have in my home lab, someone has been kind enough to offer to test.
Someone else commented on the display on a tablet PC. There have been some issues with the re-drawing on certain resolutions. The reality is, I have everyone from people who use 15 inch CRTs to people who use 24" wide screens that can alternate from portrait to landscape mode. This CTP does have issues in some resolutions. (tests were done on 1024x and 1280x). If you have an issue with display, this is something I'll look into - but remember, I'm one guy. If you can tell me the resolution you're using, I can add it to the test matrix.
I'll be working on this again this weekend, if you get your feedback to me before then (particularly on resolution), there's a good chance I can tackle that by next Monday.
Cheers,
Marc
The August Community Technology Preview of Information Center aka InfoCenter is now available for dowload.
It should be pointed out that this is a CTP - not a released product/project. It's still rough in spots, but it's more than functional enough for people to start using it and deriving value from it. The work on categories (searching), media syncing, more media management, rating, and some other bits is coming next.
I've pre-stocked the directory with almost 200 channels, so there's plenty of content. I will be adding even more channels this weekend, and you can always add your own channels via the 'Manage My Subscriptions' area of the guide.
As I mentioned when I first started talking about this, it's free. If you like it, great - if you think there are opportunities to make it better, definately let me know.
I will be working on an updated version very soon (likely this weekend) that will alert you to updates, as well as allow you to provide feedback / report issues directly through InfoCenter itself. Until that next drop, if you send me an email a mmercuri@infocenter.tv or mmercuri@microsoft.com, I'll make sure to review the issues.
It should be pointed out that InfoCenter does take a dependency on certain things. While it's very flexible, if you download a podcasts in the .MOV format (Quicktime), it will require Quicktime software to play it. You can download Quicktime from here (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html). If you already had iTunes installed, then you've got quicktime, if you don't - you'll probably need to install that via the link.
In addition, if you want to play videos from YouTube, they use technology from Macromedia. Chances are this is already installed on your machine, but if for some reason you don't have it installed, you can install it from here (http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&promoid=BIOW)
The downloadable file can be found on http://www.informationcenter.tv
Enjoy!
-Marc
While I can't FTP from within the corporate firewall, I can blog. One of the ideas I think is fresh in Information Center is the concept of 'mixing' and sharing RSS content.
The following set of screen grabs step you through how this works.
(1) Navigating through content, I see an item that I want to add to a mix, in this case Episode 58 of Diggnation.
(2) Click the Add to Mix button, and the 'Add to Mix' dialog appears. Select the Mix name you want to add this to.
So far this is similair to a playlist in a music player application - but trust me, it gets better.
(3) As I browse, I add other items to my mix. In this case I add the August 21st Dilbert cartoon.
(4) You may have noticed there's an item titled 'Manage Mixes' in the guide.
Clicking on this shows list of mixes you've built, and clicking on a mix shows you which items are there.
You can remove items from a mix, you can remove a mix altogether, but most importantly, you can share a mix.
(5) Clicking Share Mix, brings up a mail dialog (mail server setup is in the config section).
I enter the information and click send. My mix is then sent to the recipient, in this case that's me at my microsoft address.
It's important to note that what I'm sending is not the graphics for the dilbert cartoon or the video for diggnation. I'm sending an RSS Channel that was created on-the-fly, behind the scenes through Information Center (a mix is an RSS feed)
 >
(6) I receive an email. It's my shared 'Mix'. Because Information Center registers the file extension .IC, the infocenter icon is located next to the mix name. Note that the file is only 3k. We are not passing around the actually 200+ meg diggnation video or the dilbert graphic. We are passing around meta-data that says where the information can be found. You can now share information in a context without having to embed the heavy media and document objects.
(7)
Opening the item, triggers the launch of Information Center. It knows it is starting up from a file, and takes you directly to your mix
We can now see the mix. I can see all of the items that were shared and can access them.
If I go back to the UI, I can see that in the my mixes tab in the guide, Marc is listed as one of my mixes.
In addition to making them shareable so that other people can see, you can access them through information center as well.
Think about it - this effectively let's you build your own channels for your personal use and sharing from content provided by any number of individuals. For example, if I wanted to go through a number of blogs and pull out all of the items relevant on a topic - say Security in Windows Communication Foundation - I could reference content from all of the sites in a single mix.
If a colleague of mine in Europe asked me - I want to learn more about security in WCF, can you help me out ? - I can simply share my mix with him, and he has all of the information quickly.
In addition to technical content, you can build mixes with things like YouTube videos, etc. It starts getting really powerful.
I went to sign the bits last night with my new code signing certificate and ran into an issue. I've not done publisher code signing before, and I received a .SPC and a .PVK but not a .PFX. After some late night research, I was able to make a .PFX from the other two, but Visual Studio wasn't liking it.
I'll get it sorted out today, but the reality is I can't FTP out from inside Microsoft (security policy), so the soonest this will get out for non-Microsofties is tonight.
Cheers,
Marc
I came across an issue last night with Information Center running on Vista. Apparently, the last time I tested it was before adding in the Subscriptions and Mixes. The way it had been coded ran afoul of LUA.
Fortunately, I got the 411 on the LUA specifics from a colleauge this morning (yes - we Microsoft folks are always online, even on Sunday), and have re-wired where the files are stored so they play nice on Vista. Impacted the schedule some, but not to worry, this is still being released tonight (maybe a bit later  , but before I go to bed).
Cheers,
Marc
Atom support is now incorporated in (see below). There are a couple of sites with some challenges, but I'm sure that's tied to the hour (>1am here in Seattle) and will get resolved later today.
With Atom support, MySubscriptions, and MyMixes in, it's just testing, adding some additional error handling and dealing with the odd issues that come up.
If you scrutinized the screenshots, you may have noticed there was some overlap in the background frame in the feed display (curved frame at the bottom.) The great design folks in another part of the company have agreed to do one more edit for me, so this will be resolved for the release this weekend. Not sure if I can say the name of the team, but you can figure it out if you read some of the earlier postings
As this is a side project, it's a bit tougher to give dates, especially this week. I'm actually starting a new job next week (still at MS - details to come later) , so am in the midst of transitioning out of my old role, packing up my office, and ramping up on the new job in addition to working on Information Center.
No other features on the checklist, though, so if you check back on Sunday afternoon/evening, it will definately be here. If I post it Friday or Saturday, if you're on the email list, I'll send you a note.
Cheers,
Marc
Ok - before anyone says it.. yes, the grid in the version posted earlier tonight was not pretty.
It's been changed and now looks much better. See below:
 
I did four things this weekend - (1) I read some comments on blogs regarding what people thought Information Center was (and their expectations), (2) did a fair amount of usability testing, (3) wrote alot of code, and (4) consumed more diet coke than any individual should in a 48 hour period.
I've had feedback from alot of people both direct and through comments I've read on various sites, that they'd really like to be able to use this for more than just technology blogs / podcasts. There were *alot* of people who said they'd like a new tool to manage their podcasts specifically. I listened and I made some significant changes such that I think this is going to meet expectations. You'll see in the screenshots below sites that are distinctly non-technical, like NBC's Meet The Press and YouTube's Top Rated feeds. You'll also notice the guide now lists *alot* of non-technical categories. Alot of people were asking for this, so I rolled this in as a core feature in the first CTP vs. delivering it later on.
I've totally overhauled the UI, and for the first time since Information Center's inception, I'm really happy with it. One challenge was in providing as good as an experience for text based content (standard blogs) as media, the other was integrating subscriptions, subscribing, sharing, and mixing in such a way as it was intuitive. I really think the UI is finally there. I've taken a number of screenshots from my testing today and have placed them below so you can see for yourself.
In addition, you'll notice there are graphics for the blogs that are there. Where are these coming from? Images will be pulled from the relevant tags for the channel in core RSS (seen in my blog below), iTunes extensions (seen in Meet The Press and MajorNelson.com), or NewsGator extensions (seen in Channel 9). For those sites that do not specify a channel graphic, it will go to a default (see YouTube below)
I also had a fair amount of comments around the browsing window. Specifically "What if I want to watch the video in a bigger window?" What's not visible in the screenshots - but it's there, I swear - is a slider. The upper section (video/blog description, image, description) and the list of items are on two separate panels. You can extend either as much as you'd like. Once you click on an item, it determines you current window size and resizes the embedded media player appropriately. You'll also note that the video/blog area is large in general. This works out particularly well for text blogs, as you can extend to the full screen to read.
I've also been building out a tool behind the scenes which I call FeedCenter/FeedStation, which is helping me manage all of the feeds behind the scenes as well.
So - if you've ever done consulting or project management, you're familiar with the trade-off triangle. For those unfamiliar, you have time, resources and features and impacts to one area have carry on effects on others. In this case, the UI has been re-done and locked down and this can be used for lot's on non-tech content much easier now - but it's pushed this back a few days more.
This is a slow week at the office, so should be able to freely crank this out in the evenings and turn it around soon.
Please keep those comments coming - mmercuri@microsoft.com - as you can see by the accelerated inclusion of non-tech content, I really do listen
Cheers,
Marc
 
        
I mentioned in an earlier post that InfoCenter would be delayed a few days. What does that translate to? No later than 12:01am Monday PAC time. Likely before, if you signed up for a notification, you'll receive an email.
Otherwise, if you check back on Monday there will be bits available for use.
If you're asking 'Why the delay?'. There were some things I'd wanted to include in V1, that I hand't and given the state of where InfoCenter is, and how long it would take to get them in, I decided to push the drop back a couple of days. It will, without question, be on the site on Monday. Right now, there are close to 200 channels configured, and there are a couple of additions I think you'll like when you get it on Monday.
If you're really keen, if you check back over the weekend, you'll start seeing some interesting stuff pop up on Sunday.
Cheers,
Marc
"Do we really need another aggregator?" - This is a question I've been asked alot lately, in regards to Information Center.
My answer is Yes. I hope yours is too. Let me tell you why I think this, and then I'll show you some pictures from the UI that underscore the point.
I think there are a couple of things that set InfoCenter apart:
(a) featured feeds. This isn't just a client, it's pro-active - new feeds find you.
(b) media is a first class citizen in InfoCenter. The future is in media. Audio in the form of podcasts, video in any number of forms. Look at the success of podcasts on portable media devices, look at the popularity and growth rate of places like YouTube. In most aggregators, media is viewed as an attachment. in Information Center, media is a first class citizen.
(c) Information Center is designed to support just about any type of mainstream media out of the box (or can readily support it something like, say , quicktime, with a download from that vendors site). This means it will play MP3s and WMAs, it means it will play WMVs, MOVs, and other video files, and it also will play shockwave and flash. What does this mean? You can play podcasts, vblogs, and even embed YouTube's player in a feed.
(c) Information Center heavily leverages categories. You'll be able to leverage this for discoverability, and dvr-like suggestions based on your tag preferences.
(d) As stated earlier, InfoCenter will come with feeds out of the box - but you can change them and re-mix them. AND you can share them. Think about television - tv shows like Friends, Law & Order, the Brady Bunch, are all in syndication (remember that last S in RSS?) You can effectively become your own network. You can build your own feed of *links* - even if they exist across multiple sites - and take that feed and publish it as your own network. You can generate IC files (these are familiar RSS files) and share them however you like online, via email, CD/DVD, etc.
(e) Speaking of DVD, you can ship a DVD with an IC file in root, and with InfoCenter defined in the autorun, and it will start up in a kiosk mode. Allowing you to use this for content that exists offline, online, or both.
(e) InfoCenter is going to be delayed a few more days, such that I can ship a tool to allow you to easily mix your own feeds on Day 1.
Take a look at the screenshots below, it shows how powerful RSS and a new style aggregator can be. You can see that this readily displays Microsoft content (Going Deep on Channel 9, a GnomeDex video from On10.NET, and ARCast with Ron Jacobs from Skyscrapr.NET), as well as content from other third parties - including TWiT, Digg, and YouTube.
How difficult was it to do? One line in a configuration file. You just point to their feed direct or add it to your subscriptions, and you're in business.
Oh, before I forget, alot of people assumed this was done in WPF. I WISH! This is a Windows Forms application that leverages a number of controls that I've written (12, at last count). There will be a full .NET FX 3.0 version of this once those bits ship.
       
One of the primary drivers for my creating InfoCenter was to provide a tool that made discoverability easier. Earlier in the year, I came to the conclusion that even in the best case scenario - where a robust, populated guide is provided - the web is fluid, and there was still a need for search.
That being said, search covered a number of areas - the traditional (web), but also blogs, wikis and newsgroups. Sometimes I'll go to search site #1, then to a wiki site, and then to a blog search engine, etc. Rather than going to 4 or 5 different sites, I wanted a single interface where I could enter my query once and then be able to readily navigate amongst the different type of search stores.
In addition, sometimes even within a category - some search engines algorithms are a bit different, and if unsatisfied with the results from the favorite engine, people will check a secondary, and sometimes even a third search engine.
As my customers are primarily in the Enterprise, I also added an area called 'Vendors' - this taps into the search engines of major software vendors (Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, SAP, etc.)
Information Center provides the ability to determine the category of search at the top of the screen, allowing you to change context very easily. If search criteria have been established, the search will kick off automatically in the new context (i.e. from Web to Blogs).
In addition, at the bottom of the screen are a number of tabs that represent different search engines within a category. Clicking on any of these will send a query to those search engines automatically.
Under the covers, what I've done is written a .NET assembly that knows how to structure a search for these various web, newsgroup, blog, wiki, and third-party vendors. As a result, you don't need to navigate amongst multiple sites in a browser, nor do you need to re-key your search criteria.
I've attached screenshots below of the various tabs and their functionality. If you have any questions or feedback, I'm very much interestedin hearing it.
Regards,
Marc
In my work, I work very heavily with pre-released technologies (like Windows Communication Foundation, Workflow Foundation, etc.)
The two questions I get asked fairly often - particularly now that we have so many products coming out and have embraced community technology previews for those products - is 'How do I know what the new stuff is, and how do I know when I can get it?". Right behind that are requests for things such as samples, utilities, etc.
InfoCenter has a tab named Downloads that aims to help alleviate this issue. The screen has links to downloads, betas and CTPs, demos, trial software, and utilities. In addition, the current MSDN top 10 downloads are featured on the main page.
Reposted after the Microsoft Watch - EWeek references:
If you've seen/heard the latest podcast by the great folks over at DotNetRocks, you've heard the first public talk about a pet project of mine called InfoCenter. If you haven't - then it might be worth checking out here - http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=189.
While this is the first public discussion/showing of InfoCenter, the UI has undergone a very interesting set of changes recently. The .NET Rocks podcast was actually recorded close to a month ago, at which time this announcement was targeted to go live on the 18th. Unfortunately, the original UI for InfoCenter (below) was similiar enough to a certain next-generation gaming console that it was ...err.. politely suggested (strongly too ), that the interface be changed before sharing outside the company. Fortunately, those same next generation console folks were very cool about it, and offered to re-design the interface for me for free. The UI also incorported alot of feedback I had from folks inside Microsoft who took a look at the original design / navigation flow.
You can see the original and the new UI below:
The original, and the released UI
 
Before we get to the introduction, I want to stress that InfoCenter is a pet project of mine - it is not an official Microsoft product, there is no sku for it, and until someone tells me otherwise, it's free.
Without further ado, the introduction........
Introduction
In the early days of Windows, discovery of Microsoft related content – be it new product announcements, documentation, guidance/how to’s, downloads or community – was relatively straightforward. There were four key areas to look – Microsoft.Com, MSDN, ftp.microsoft.com, and UseNet newsgroups.
During this period, Microsoft excited, educated, and enabled a legion of developers and developer-hopefuls to become part of the profitable software economy. UseNet Newsgroups provided a forum that had not yet been corrupted by spammers, and provided a unique opportunity for individuals to audit a master class, a class where the professors were some of the more well known names in the industry.
Today, things are significantly different. There are more products, more places to look for information, more categories of information, and less time in which to find it.
Today’s reality has Microsoft releasing more new products and new product versions than in the entire history of the company. There are new versions of Windows, Office, Server, Mobile, Web, and Live. There are first class server products like Biztalk, Speech, SQL, and MOM. There are great new technologies like WCF, WF, WPF, and CardSpace.
With more products comes more content, and in the intervening years the number of locations where content can be found has exploded. When looking solely at Microsoft web properties, Microsoft.com and MSDN have been joined by Channel 9, ASP.NET, GotDotNet, and CodeZone. There are also numerous community sites now online, such as WindowsCommunication.NET, WindowsWorkflow.Net, IIS7.NET,MSDomino.net, etc.
Looking beyond 1 Microsoft Way, there are a multitude of other sites that are providing articles, downloads, code, and communities as well. Beyond the sites, there are hundreds of blogs that are driven by individuals both inside and outside the company. Discoverability of content is a major issue.
In addition to more locations to find more content, there are also new categories of content available. Due to the adoption of broadband in the intervening period, it is now realistic to distribute audio and video content in both streaming and downloadable varieties. This opens up new opportunities to both serve and distribute this content to various devices and formats.
I think developers need a mechanism by which top tier content is identified, categorized, aggregated, and searchable from a single interface. And that mechanism needs to be automated, such that fresh, targeted content finds its way to the Enterprise consumer.
To enable this, I thought there was a need for an application that leverages aspects of both the Windows OS and the web, with an engine powered by RSS. Through RSS, we can empower our clients to consume not just the feeds that we provide – but also the ability to mix in those of third party vendors as well as their own internal corporate blogs and best practices.
Just as we created a Media Center to harness the growing amount of media content enabled by software, the thought was that there could be something similiar that could be done for information. Essentially, I saw a need for an Information Center.
By harnessing information for people and providing them the ability to readily find and consume content of interest to them, I think there is an opportunity to once again educate, excite, and enable our next generation of developers.
Getting InfoCenter
With the late breaking design change, I've had to make some changes in the layout and the flow, and am just wrapping up the revised CTP. The link for the bits will officially be listed here August 9th. If you'd like an email sent if this is available sooner, if you'd like to chat suggest 'channels' for InfoCenter, or if you want to chat about InfoCenter, click here or send an email to mmercuri@microsoft.com with the following subject "[RequestFromBlog][InfoCenter][CTPNotification]"
Very best regards, Marc Mercuri
Prior to coming to Microsoft, I was VP of Development for a company called Gazelle. One of the challenges we had there, was the need to standardize the names of items in a restaurant environment such that they could be warehoused and compared across chains.
The problem that we found – and the problem I see getting out of hand with blogs today – is there is no common set of definitions that people utilize or contribute to. In a restaurant example, you have no UPC codes for say a margarita. The name is essentially what exists on the POS button. This name can change from physical location to physical location within a chain of restaurants, and also variants between chains. There are no hard rules on what name is defined on the POS key, other than name length. As a result, you ended up with “Marg”, “Rita”, “MRITA”, “Mrgrta”, “Mrgarita”, “Margarita”, etc. An elaborate set of filters needed to be developed, run through, tweaked, and run through again, with ultimately a human with domain expertise mapping the unknown items to an existing or known definition.
This is the same thing we’re seeing in blogs, only there are far more blogs than restaurants, and blogs cover far more subject matter domains than restaurants. Eventually, we will want to do what I did for restaurants at Gazelle – standardize data, provide common tags by which to identify, find, and share information.
I think there is a distinct opportunity for someone to stand up and show some leadership here and build a common repository of tags and allow people to contribute to them. This would need to also include a thesaurus of similar tags.
In addition to categorizations you might expect “Technology”, “Windows Communication Foundation”, etc. we can let people identify contexts in which that definition applies – be it verticals (retail, hospitality, financial services, entertainment, etc.), demographics (geography, language, age bracket, gender, marital status, etc.) This provides additional context which can help us with relevancy determinations in future.
If we ignore these categorization issues, I think we’re missing out on an easy opportunity to provide leadership in the web 2.0 space, and make it easier for both bloggers to get visibility as well as our search engines (and related advertising services) more information to bring results and ads back to customers.
At Gazelle, we approached the problem by designing a system that broke apart the word(s) and did pattern matching, auto-mapping what it could and going to an individual when it was questionable. The challenge there was it required someone who had domain specific knowledge and was not easily outsourced. In this scenario, we found that the team in India had a hard time mapping back some of the items purely from lack of exposure of some of the brands. When you look at tags, you have something exponentially larger because they cover any subject.
Consistency in tags is something that's a pre-requisite for the opportunity to do something meaningul with context, affinity, and trust for the next generation web.
One of the negatives of having InfoCenter as a sideproject, is that I've got a full time job that sometimes gets in the way
I've got to unexpectedly head to NYC next week to deliver an architectural design session for a customer, and while I've tried to get it polished off this weekend, it's just not there yet. The introduction of the new UI has required both new controls and some variants on the existing ones, and I'm not happy with where they're at right now (10pm on Sunday). As a result, I'm pushing the 'official' date is now Aug 9th, if it's wrapped up any sooner I'll post it here.
Cheers,
Marc
There's a blogger from Australia who had run across the DotNetRocks podcast, and had some questions about what InfoCenter is and what InfoCenter isn't. Quite frankly, I've been amazed at the response, considering the CTP isn't yet evailable.
At any rate, one of the questions that came up was around the value and/or role of the aggregator of feeds - not just software, but the humans who inject domain expertise and experience in putting together an aggregated blog. People who involve software and people to bring together a noise-free, targeted feed.
For this, I look to the last letter in RSS? That S stands for Syndication. Effectively, the way I see the world is that every blogger is a production company, generating syndicated content. While we can broadcast our own content via our blogs, there's also interest in repackaging our content and leveraging it in other places.
Just like in television, people generate revenue by hiring program directors / editors that compile a group of syndicated content into a product or programming schedule and sell ads based on viewership.
While the underlying value is in the content, there's tremendous value in the aggregation of particular content by people we trust and who we hold up as experts in a particular area.
We all have the opportunity to become program directors of RSS content, what needs to be figured out is how the revenue stream works back for the creator of the content. In the syndicated television world, you buy rights to a show for a particular period, for a particular market. The payment, as I understand it, is established up front.
On the web, it would seem this would be more fluid, and as a result there needs to be a way for either the syndicator to specify ads to be shown in conjunction with their content, or for networks/program directors to provide incremental revenue back to the networks/program directors.
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