Beyond Channel 9

So those crazy cats at Channel 9 are up to something new and somewhat secretive so far.

A mysterious source who will go unnamed (but will receive a beer at Mix06) showed me the picture to the right on Jeff Sandquist’s Flickr site. At first I wondered if he was having a child and naming it Channel

But I dug a little deeper and saw a link to on10.net which includes a videocast.

From the video and the thumbnails which represent further clues that will be unveiled this week, it looks like they are producing some sort of television show (for developers?) hosted by some woman and Cl@y Aìken.

Actually, upon further review of the video, I don’t think that is Cl@y after all^1^.

Seems like Microsoft is really on this let the cat out of the bag slowly style of viral marketing these days. I believe this is quite independent of Origami, but I can’t help noticing the parallels in how they are taking advantage of the blogging community to slowly build out hype from the grassroots level. I personally think its neat, though I realize I am providing unpaid advertising for something I have no idea what it is. It had better be good! ;)

As an aside, I wonder when they’re going to be rebranded as Channel9 Live™. Their URL still contains MSDN but it’s only a matter of time. ;)

^1^ UPDATE: So I was right, it is definitely not Cl@y. In the beginning of the video, there was a bit of uncertainty, but at the very end, it is obviously someone much better looking and more female. Someone named Laura Foy who was on G4TV, which I’ve never seen but I heard about. Wasn’t it a show about computer games for geeks? Maybe On10 is going to be an XBox show.

Comments

9 responses

Scott • March 6th, 2006
OH man, I can't believe you're letting Scoble use you. I'm pretty disappointed if you were solicited to post this.

Scott • March 6th, 2006
and I'm not saying you were or weren't. But it sounds like you were.
"though I realize I am providing unpaid advertising for something I have no idea what it is. It had better be good! "

Haacked • March 6th, 2006
Somehow I knew this would come up. ;)
I have a couple of friends I know personally (before they were assimilated) that work there who are very excited about the work they've been doing and told me about this, but couldn't give me details.
This is just friends helping friends. I trust their judgement.

Scott • March 6th, 2006
*whew*
There are so few blogs with high traffic that aren't shill blogs, it's depressing.

Haacked • March 6th, 2006
Ha ha. Oh ye of little faith.
Scott, after writing this post (https://haacked.com/archive/... critical of "Microsoft-Think" you'd still think I might be a Microsoft Shill? ;)

Robert Scoble • March 7th, 2006
I had nothing to do with this blog post. Hope that helps.

Adam Kinney • March 7th, 2006
Ah yes, it was me not Scoble. As Phil mentioned, he knows the whole dev team in some form or another and we chose him as one of the first people to see it. I was also looking for that free beer at MIX...
And can I say Phil, what a nice looking blog you have, that Live Comment thing is great. I really need to fix mine up, but as you've mentioned a couple times, the cobbler's kids have no shoes :p

Scott • March 7th, 2006
"you'd still think I might be a Microsoft Shill?"
I should have never doubted you Phil, you had me at "Hello"

Kent Sharkey • March 8th, 2006
https://haacked.com/archive/... slide from Mark Pilgrim's ETech Presentation:...