Microsoft targets young geeks with blog service

TheSpoke.net hopes to build community of students interested in software development.
Microsoft Corp. has quietly launched a Web logging, or blogging, service targeted at tech-savvy people in their teens and 20s, but the service is apparently open to anybody.
The service is called TheSpoke and is part of Microsoft's Academic Developer initiative, a Microsoft spokesman said Tuesday. The site was created by Singapore-based marketing services company Earth9 Pte. Ltd. and went live last week, said a spokesman for Smooth Fusion Inc., the Lubbock, Texas, company that hosts TheSpoke.net for Microsoft.

Microsoft's academic developer initiative is focused on building a community of students interested in software development, the Microsoft spokesman said. TheSpoke is in a test phase and more features will be added, he said, adding that the site is not intended to be competition for blogging services such as Google Inc.'s Blogger.
"While there is a blogging component, TheSpoke is not a blogging site. Creating this kind of community is a longstanding Microsoft approach, particularly when it comes to building relations with developers," he said. "Considering that academia is fertile ground for Mac and other Unix and Linux development, Microsoft is wise to provide alternative resources like TheSpoke, where student developers can gather and build a community."

TheSpoke is at http://www.thespoke.net/

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