You know, when people say "you are doing too much marketing on Channel 9" I'm gonna point them to the video with Marc McDonald we put up today. He is Microsoft's first employee. The stories he tells are fun, but about 7/8ths of the way through the video he starts talking about the iPod. Hey, Steve Jobs, we'll charge you for the free advertisement later. :-)

We also talk about the benefits of joining a startup. I don't know that Microsoft recruiting will want people to watch this video either.

Come visit Bill Gates in his office.

And, yes, I was a nervous. Hey, it's Bill Gates!

Oh, and meet Marc McDonald, Microsoft's first employee.

Yesterday I said Yahoo was a social software powerhouse. Today the BBC is reporting that Yahoo 'helped jail China writer.' Yikes. If hope I never have to decide on things like this.

Ahh, cool, Engadget reveals that Gateway has the first widescreen Tablet PC. I saw this last week when I interviewed the Tablet PC team. It isn't gonna turn on the Tablet PC purists, but it's the first one that really can play DVD movies well.

Hmm, a new RSS reader, SearchFox RSS, is coming I was just told. Anyone try this yet? I'll try to get on this weekend, but am slammed with PDC stuff. Here's what the site says: "SearchFox RSS is an RSS reader that aggregates and personalizes feeds. It uses machine learning technology to automatically rank and personalize incoming feeds to reflect each reader’s unique interests.

It's PDC time. Last time there was a PDC, I wrote a post titled "How to Hate Microsoft."

That caused a stir.

This year hate is down, but ambivalence is up. Here's some things folks have told me about Microsoft in the past few months:

1) You're irrelevant.
2) You're just a copier, not an innovator.
3) You can't ship anything with any features.
4) All you guys do is pull features out and slip.
5) Other companies, like Google, are kicking your ass.
6) The action is on the Internet, not on Windows.
7) You guys make sucky products.
8) Buggy products.
9) Insecure products.
10) You're selfish.
11) Can't be trusted.
12) You're evil.
13) You only care about money, not about building a great product.

I could keep going, but you get the idea. Steve Gillmor yesterday said "Microsoft is roadkill." That about covers it, no?

So, why don't we have some fun? Who can come up with the best way to insult Microsoft? "Buy an iPod," I can hear you saying. Ouch. But, come on, can't you find an even better insult? Let's get it out on the table. Give me your best insult. Or are you too ambivalent about Microsoft? Ouch, that's a good one!

Apple announced a bunch of stuff yesterday. Already my son is drooling over the new iPod.

But not everyone was wowwed by Steve Jobs. TechDirt's Carlo Longino writes "iTunes Phone as iLame As iExpected." Ouch.

John Markoff in the New York Times has the details, although I doubt anyone missed these announcements yesterday since they were all over the blogs.

Biz Stone leaves Google and goes to Odeo.

Congrats Biz!

Jenna, over on Microsoft's JobsBlog, talks about seeing some folks standing out in front of MSN's building with advertisements telling employees where to go to get jobs. I saw them too, but couldn't remember their URL. Bad advertising, me thinks.

But, yes, another sign that the job market is heating up.

JSawyer is a Microsoft employee working on an app, KatrinaSafe, to help get Katrina victims back in touch with their families. It's interesting to follow his blog as they develop the app.

A leading Autralian advertising and search company, Sensis, just bought a few hundred Tablet PCs.

Scoble tours the world on Channel 9:

Visited our Cambridge Research center and got a tour of Cambridge. Visited the Microsoft home in London. Got a look at the Blogger group at Google and the Web Services team at Amazon.

Chief Internet Evangelist? That's a cool title. Who has it? Vinton Cerf, just joined Google. Hey, SteveB, put that chair down! :-)

Over on Fred's AVC blog I see that Skype is thinking of selling out to eBay.

Oh, and you don't even need to read blogs to find out these two pieces of news. Bloomberg reported them on its Sirius channel.