MSN Blogs Against it's Customers

Honestly, I couldn't give a crap about MSN. Anyone who blogs there, or reads them, doesn't know the whole story.

But now, with MSN Filter, the convicted monopolist, is creating their own nanopublishing venture -- competing against it's customers. That's OK in monopoly land. Where profit is a function of property, and eminent domain falsely considered a right. Microsoft Watch:

MSN Filter appears to be a cross between a traditional Web log, where writers have full editorial control, and a wiki model, embracing user contributions.

Adam Sheppard, lead product manager for MSN Filter, said MSN's model " is essentially Nanopublishing as originally championed by Nick Denton at Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc. Both are great blog networks with their own audiences that they'll continue to be successful with."

Push-ah. And this is supposedly a wiki model because it embraces user contributions. The article continues:

The paid bloggers are area-experts, notable bloggers and journalists. In the initial stages of MSN Filter, we expect them to share their expertise, thoughts and content..." Adam Sohn, director of MSN public relations added.

Yeah, the wiki model is paid experts blogging anonymously. You even have to log in with Passport to comment, and everything is Microsoft copyright. Sure, wiki is a buzzword, but give us some respect.

How fucked up is the branding of a blog service provider calls their blog micropub a filter and then claims the wiki model when paying people to produce property? Seriously.

[via Loic]

Comments

[Sam]

So what is so special about MSN Filter? It looks like another Gawker to me.

Te official MSN filter website ays: 'Features within MSN Filter include the ability to post comments, receive alerts on the desktop, phone or by email when new content is posted; and to receive updates through RSS feeds to a newsreader or the My MSN personalized homepage. ' How is it different from other rss aggregator services like bloglines?

[Adina Levin]

"Anyone who blogs there, or reads them, doesn't know the whole story."

Bloggers participate in microcommunities. Often, microcommunities colonize a service, like LiveJournal and Xanga. The blogs are more about the people than the service. They don't care about the "whole story", they just want a place to share with friends and colleagues.

Then again, given the IP terms -- Microsoft owns your words -- I wouldn't write a word there. Microsoft is within the rights of its terms of service to take the content, publish it in Filter, and not compensate its bloggers. That would be evil.

More here

[the head lemur]

+1
Using Gawker as a role model is priceless

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[Simit Patel]

I'm no fan of Microsoft and am a big fan of open source and peer production frameworks. But, with that said, I think this does fill a market gap (or at least the idea behind it does). There is a lot of noise in the blogosphere now, and that's largely because everyone and their mother can start a blog. With that kind of mass production and no controlling entity, many great things can happen -- as we've seen -- but so can many bad things, like inaccurate information and a lack of organization.

It's the same arugment as Encarta vs Wikipedia. I'll take Wikipedia any day of the week over Encarta, but I do see it's appeal, and hence can see how it serves a purpose.

[Dan]

I definitely don't see why MS should own the copyright to anyone's entries. I think you are better off just starting your own blog from another provider or buying some cheap web space.

I am also a believer in that OpenSource is usually better than paid for products. Wikipedia is certainly better than Encarta.