Microsoft is set to introduce a new social bookmarking tool (not as flexible as popular existing ones such as del.icio.us or mag.nol.ia by the looks of it) but the twist is that this is aimed directly at both software developers and IT professionals and will roll out across the Microsoft TechNet and MSDN communities.
A demonstration of the aptly named Social Bookmarks service will be on show at the upcoming TechEd conference in North America, albeit without complete functionality, and will showcase its tagging and bookmarking features.
Back in 2006, Microsoft launched a beta of a social bookmarking tool named TagSpace, meant to be along the lines of del.ico.us, but this seems to have disappeared into the ether only to re-emerge as Social Bookmarks.
Microsoft has said in the past that this service is not intended to replace Windows Live Favourites, which is more for the general user.
Whether the idea of social bookmarking for developer and IT communities based around Microsoft will work is anyone’s guess but blogger and Microsoft developer Paul Mooney doesn’t think it will.
“Just over a year ago we were introducing Microsoft TagSpace and I thought at last all the disparate Microsoft community blogs would be linked together so we could intelligently understand what all of us were doing collectively. That didn’t happen …”
By Marie Boran
