Picture the following scenario: Microsoft has created a weblog tool that is designed to run inside the firewall at a company. It’s browser-accessible from any 4.0 or higher web browser and doesn’t require Windows on the client. It leverages their strengths by integrating with Office, and there’s no per-user client access fee. Then imagine if this weblogging tool were deployed to millions of users, all before anyone in the weblog community took notice. That scenario is real.

anil dash thinks that microsoft is dipping a toe in the weblog market, and i have it confirmed that there are internal blogging tools at microsoft too. this could be a huge boost to the weblog ecosystem, or it could kill it. the current infrastructure does not scale to 10s of millions of authors with ease, and the culture that has formed around weblogs even less. as with other geek toys before, blogs will have to be made ready for newbies, and will lose much of their chic in the process. the efficiency improvements for society will outweigh these downsides (which are only gripes of the elite, anyway)

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