The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

14 November 2003

Immovable type

Eloise at Spitbull is predicting that Microsoft will integrate blogging tools into some future version of Internet Explorer.

Into some version of Windows, maybe; Microsoft has already said that they will no longer be developing standalone versions of IE. And I'm sort of hoping she's wrong.

What would Windows blogging tools be like? Probably something like this:

  • All posts must be composed in Word.

  • You'd have to ping microsoft.com with a registration code before the program would send pings to blo.gs or to weblogs.com.

  • Any build error would generate a Blue Screen of Death and require a reboot.

  • The comment-spam filter would randomly block Safari and Opera users.

  • Windows Media Player would automatically delink any linked mp3 files.

  • Microsoft.com would wind up on the TTLB Ecosystem as the Highest Being, Dammit.

  • The built-in spellchecker will have issues with the word "Unix".

  • There will be a new security "upgrade" every other Tuesday.

  • Each member of a group blog would have to pay for a separate license.

  • A rogue email will be able to infect your templates.

On the upside, complaints about Blogger and Blogspot should diminish markedly.

Posted at 8:09 PM to Blogorrhea


TrackBack: 9:38 PM, 14 November 2003
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...and you think the number of one-post blogs are high now...

Posted by: Terkish Payne at 9:32 PM on 14 November 2003

And of course there would be no way at all to block comment spam.

Posted by: McGehee at 5:58 AM on 15 November 2003

Oops, you already mentioned a comment-spam filter. Well, I say there won't be one! <stamps foot, startling the cat>

So there. Guess I told you.

Posted by: McGehee at 5:59 AM on 15 November 2003

"Microsoft.com would wind up on the TTLB Ecosystem as the Highest Being, Dammit."

Nah. I'm not above rigging the system to ensure Bill and his minions remain Microbes eternally...

-NZB

Posted by: N.Z. Bear at 8:18 PM on 16 November 2003

Blogger works much better on Netscape/Mozilla anyway.

Posted by: yehudit at 1:55 AM on 17 November 2003

Given today's brou-hah-ha over The Hacked Blogrolling thing, I doubt seriously that bloggers would just roll over.

Interesting concept, though.

"It's not a bug, it's a feature" would become everyone's tagline, perhaps?

Heh.

Posted by: margi at 5:10 PM on 17 November 2003

I'd go back to this possibly-apocryphal Gatesism:

"640k ought to be enough for anybody."

Posted by: CGHill at 7:47 PM on 17 November 2003

You've got it all wrong. The backend would be built by the Exchange group, be solid as a rock, provide new important features that would drive profitability of businesses way up, and upgrade with a standard admin UI.

The front end will be developed by the Outlook group, have an artistic but unusable UI, have thousands of pointless programming feature, and become a major new source of virus distribution on the web.

The problem is not that Microsoft is universally incompetant, they're not. The problem is that many of the products that Microsoft puts the least emphasis towards structural quality control are the ones that get used by the most people.

Posted by: Patrick Lasswell at 2:52 AM on 18 November 2003

Point taken — but you have to figure that a blogging tool will fall into the category of "products...used by the most people," precisely the area where MS is the weakest.

Posted by: CGHill at 7:31 AM on 18 November 2003