Here is a word for you: Oxite

This is Microsoft’s “open source” blogging platform, supposedly aimed at developer – NOT aimed at other blogging platforms such as Wordpress or MovableType.  Not sure I believe that claim, but hey…

According to Microsoft, Oxite is a:

standards-compliant, extensible content-management system designed to support either blogs or larger Web sites, Microsoft said. The platform includes support for features such as pingbacks, trackbacks, anonymous or authenticated commenting, gravatars (globally recognized avatars), and RSS feeds at any page level

Why would Microsoft attempt to get into the blogging platform space at this point?  While I know nothing, to me this would be an easy way of introducing Sharepoint to a whole new world of developers.  

It turns out that Oxite was written in ASP.NET, much like Microsoft’s other “portal and blogging” offering – Sharepoint.  What better way of creating a demand than giving users a “teaser” product then saying “oh, you want to implement this on a large scale… it’s funny because we have this other product that will meet your needs”.

While executive management will not be aware of the both products, necessarily, the hardcore developer of an organization will.  This will have the ability to create a “demand” from within.

Smart move by Microsoft if that is their intent…

For the social networking/micro blogger crowd I have a bit of news for you.  Pownce, the slimmed down version of Twitter, is shutting down as of 12/15/2008.  Is it going to be a big loss to the community?  I’m not sure.  While there was (is) a loyal user base I believe people will simply move to other services… that is if they don’t already use them.

What I find interesting is this note from the Pownce team: Goodbye Pownce, Hello Six Apart

We’re very happy that Six Apart wants to invest in growing the vision that we the founders of Pownce believe so strongly in and we’re very excited to take our vision to all of Six Apart’s products. Mike and I have joined Six Apart as part of their engineering team and we’re looking forward to being a part of the talented group that has created amazing tools for blogging and publishing.

If I read between the lines, the acquisition of Pownce is solely to integrate Pownce technology into Six Apart products and not for the user base the service has created. Does that mean communication tools such as Pownce (or Twitter) really have no true means of converting usage into revenue?

If that is the case, what does this say about the future of other social networking tools?  

As TechCrunch points out Twitter was eating Pownce’s lunch.  It is also good to hear users will be able “to export their accounts to other services, allowing them to retain their messages and media”