Dave Wanta pointed out this article on ZDNet: Microsoft Test Drives Another Blogging Tool. The article talks about Microsoft's upcoming blogging site aimed at students: TheSpoke.NET. TheSpoke looks pretty bare to me, still a lot of “under construction” signs, but the aim of it seems to be a blog aggregate site for students. TheSpoke, according to a ZDNet article source, is Microsoft's competition against LiveJournal, Blog*Spot, and other such community blog sites. Although I can't see this as something Microsoft is that serious about, otherwise you think they'd keep the site private until it worked, at least!
Does TheSpoke use .Text? I dunno? Can anyone share if it does or not? I'm going to guess not, but that's just that - a guess. The ZDNet article also talks about blogging support in the Community Starter Kit. But.... no mention of .Text anywhere in that article. As you might or might not know, .Text is a blogging engine written by Scott Watermasysk. It's open-source and is what is powering Weblogs.ASP.NET (and will be the engine for the GotDotNet blogs as well, as the GDN blogs are moving over the Weblogs.ASP.NET). It is what powers my blogs (this one and NBAWeblog.com), and many other blogs running on ASP.NET. So, why no .Text love from ZDNet?
On a grander note, what do you think Microsoft's plans for .Text are moving forward? Do you think Microsoft is creating their own blogging engine (i.e., TheSpoke), and plan on ditching .Text?