Finally... there is nothing worse than having to listen to weeks of hype about something that is not only off limits to you but also such a secret that you don't even get to know what is being hyped.
Well, as we all pretty much guessed, Channel 9 is an MS web site with videos, interviews, etc. Good stuff so far, and it's purty. The exceptional use of orange almost makes up for the utter lack of blue (sorry, default-colored hyperlinks don't count toward your blue quota).
One early post has “The Channel 9 Doctrine“. I'll just post the first 'rule':
1. Channel 9 is all about the conversation. Channel 9 should inspire Microsoft and our customers to talk in an honest and human voice. Channel 9 is not a marketing tool, not a PR tool, not a lead generation tool.
Man, if only they'd left that last sentence off, it would have been believable... ;) If they're not marketing this to us [developers, developers, developers, developers, customers, clients, users, etc], and if this isn't a means of stroking the Relationship with us members of the Public, then I don't see any reason for it at all. If it wasn't for marketing and PR, they would just make it internal, right? I think someone has fallen for the idea that “marketing“ and “PR“ are bad words just because some of it (most of it?) is so bad.
So far, there is some slightly interesting stuff up (including this hard-hitting interview regarding the battle of “one space or two after a period“) but it looks to be a great “alternative“ channel for info and trivia from and about the MS staff. I think one of the problems that MS has faced in the recent years is the fact that most people only know of MS employees via what they have seen on TV: Bill Gates, “Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! “, some guy faking a BSOD in Federal Court, and that damn blue insect. It is easy to think of MS as the B0rg, the Evil Empire, etc, when you don't actually have any real facts or insight.
It should also be another way for MS to hear what the rest of the world thinks. Any channel of input (pun intended) is a good thing. Anyone who has followed the very early development of what will be Microsoft's c. 2006-2007 line of products has seen that both we and MS have gained from the dialog we now have. It is so much better to have an idiotic feature/bug removed/fixed before it is released instead of afterwards.
WARNING: The site is still rough around the edges. Things don't quite line up right in IE6 here and if you open the linky linky in FIREFOX, every video on the page starts playing at once. It's a little confusing but very nice if you long for the halcyon days of your high school cafeteria.