Microsoft Launches The Hive

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.activewin.com/interviews/microsoft/42.shtml' target='_blank'>http://www.activewin.com/interviews/microsoft/42.shtml</a><br /><br /></div><i>"On June 13th, Microsoft, together with key community leaders, announced the beta launch of “The Hive,” an online site dedicated to helping online group leaders, bloggers and other community website owners who focus on consumer information regarding Windows, Windows applications, and technical issues. To shed more light on the new site and what it means for Windows users, Josh Levine, Group Product Manager for the Windows Client Community Group, lets us know what the buzz is about."</i><br /><br />Microsoft has launched <a href="http://www.hive.net">The Hive</a> today, although this is more a resource for community leaders than it is for Joe End User. Digital Media Thoughts also happens to be a site sponsor, though I'm still not entirely clear on what that means. :wink: Activewin has published an interview with Josh Levine, the Group Product Manager for the Windows Client Community Group. Now there's a mouthful of a title!

[adderx99]

if microsoft is the 'hive', then i guess were all just drones....

who does this make the queen bee?

[Kent Pribbernow]

I'm still not 100% clear on what "The Hive" is. If it's not for Joe User, what or whom is it for, and how do I access it? When I attempted to register it asked me for my online Group affiliation, etc. I'm already a contrib editor of one of The Hive's sponsoring sites and I feel left out of the hornets nest.

And am I the only one concerned with the choice of names for this venture? "The Hive" sounds a bit too much like The Borg Collective to me. Not a good idea for a company constantly accused of market domination and monopolistic tactics. ;)

[Jason Dunn]

I'm still not 100% clear on what "The Hive" is. If it's not for Joe User, what or whom is it for, and how do I access it? When I attempted to register it asked me for my online Group affiliation, etc. I'm already a contrib editor of one of The Hive's sponsoring sites and I feel left out of the hornets nest.

https://www.inthehive.com/faq.aspx

I'll ask about you joining under Digital Media Thoughts - I'm not entirely clear on how that part works.

Regarding the name, I think everyone needs to get a sense of humour and relax a little - not everything is plot to take over the world. :roll:

[Kent Pribbernow]

I'm not entirely clear on how that part works.

That's what I mean.

Regarding the name, I think everyone needs to get a sense of humour and relax a little - not everything is plot to take over the world. :roll:

Sense of humor? What do you think the winky was for? :wink:

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Actually, I'm sure it is, as you don't start on any initiative if it does not contribute to company performance, and the guys who came up with the name sure have a sense of humour! :lol:

[Mr. MacinTiger]

I think there's more behind the name "The Hive" than just a wink and a smile. If it seems very Borglike, it's like that for a good reason 8O You're all going to be assimilated or have already been. Come to think of it, now that Macs are going to switch to Intel, I'm going to be assimilated as well :cry:

[Chris Gohlke]

And am I the only one concerned with the choice of names for this venture? "The Hive" sounds a bit too much like The Borg Collective to me. Not a good idea for a company constantly accused of market domination and monopolistic tactics. ;)

I like the name. :robot: :wink:

[OSUKid7]

I'll ask about you joining under Digital Media Thoughts - I'm not entirely clear on how that part works.
Yeah, I wasn't really clear on that either, but I went ahead and registered with DMT as a "Member," so hopefully they'll still let me in. ;)

The name's ok, but nothing innovative. Sort of like Start.com (http://www.start.com) and many other things from Microsoft (Channel9 for that matter). It could be good, but the name doesn't exactly make sense.

[Chris Gohlke]

I am assuming they are going with The Hive because it is all about the Buzz

[Jason Dunn]

Yeah, I wasn't really clear on that either, but I went ahead and registered with DMT as a "Member," so hopefully they'll still let me in. ;)

Well...probably not. It's for community leaders, not the community itself. It's more like a peer to peer support/chat forum for people that run Web sites, not end users.

[OSUKid7]

Well...probably not. It's for community leaders, not the community itself. It's more like a peer to peer support/chat forum for people that run Web sites, not end users.
Yeah...that's what I was thinking, but then I saw the "Member" option so I thought I'd give it a try.

[karen]

Here's my take on Hive:

- I'm guessing they will hope to instill "buzz" and shiny, happy feelings in online community leaders. They will do this by giving away t-shirts to all those geeky online community leaders. Everyone knows that t-shirts are the driving force for every geeky community leader

- the think that all our online communities are 'cute', so they came up with a cute concept for their site

- they still think that the entire universe us controlled by the U.S., hence the limitation of t-shirts to geeky US community leaders only.

- there will be lots of silly 'rah-rah' events, with prizes to geeky US community leaders in the hopes that said leaders will evangelize their products to their world-wide community of geeky members. See - free t-shirt to a yankee means millions of nifty marketing messages to the world.

Ok, I'm cynical, I admit.

But to me the website reminded me more of an AOL community than a website for technology-savvy online community leaders.

I submitted my application, though, in the hope that it would be useful.

[karen]

I submitted my application, though, in the hope that it would be useful.

Well, I was rejected as "not meeting the requirements" Hmmm. Community of 8,000 members focusing on databases stuff including SQL server, all running on SQL Server and Windows 2003.

Seems to me that we met the criteria of 1) Using MS technologies and 2) talking about them.

I wonder if our community was too small or too much about the development of quality databases.

Guess I'll have to see what the production version of Hive turns out to be.