Episode 32 of the PodLeaders show
My guest on Podleaders today is Niall Kennedy. Niall is the former Community Manager of Technorati and has just started working for Microsoft on the Windows Live project.
Niall was very generous to agree to do this interview. I interviewed Niall a couple of months ago but through some stupidity on my part and a bit of a software glitch, I lost the interview. I was mortified. I immediately notified Niall and he was exceedingly gracious and straightaway offered to do another interview. Our schedules didn’t allow us to do this second interview until now, but I’m glad because we were able to discuss Niall’s starting with Microsoft and the Windows Live project that he will be working on.
Here are all the questions I asked Niall along with their times during the interview:
Can you tell us first off about your background? - 0:36
Are PriceGrabber.com and NextTag a bit like Froogle? - 0:57
How did the Om and Niall podsessions podcast come about? - 1:46
It is interesting how you don’t always see eye to eye - 2:58
You recently left Technorati and joined the guys in Microsoft. Does that feel a bit like going over to the Dark side? - 3:43
When are you starting with Microsoft? - 5:42
Will it mean you having to move from San Francisco to Seattle? - 5:57
How does Live.com differentiate itself from Google’s start page and MyYahoo? - 7:00
You are a Mac user. How will Windows Live work with a Mac, I mean OneCare won’t work with a Mac, will it? - 10:31
Is there a business model around Windows Live that you are aware of? - 12:08
There are rumours emerging about Windows Live offering truckloads of disk space. Do you know anything about that? - 13:47
Readers questions:
Damien Mulley
What will you be bringing to Microsoft and what would you like to change in their attitude towards RSS/Atom - 16:23What do you think of RSS/Atom/ and other “standards”? Do you think there should be one standard to unite them all? - 18:14
How will that affect Microsoft’s extension of RSS - 21:09
Paul O’Mahony
If you had some advice for some aspiring bloggers who wanted to improve the technical sophistication of their blog, what would it be? - 21:43Dennis Howlett
As I understand it, you are going in to do some major work on RSS. If that’s true then is this for IE7? Or is this part of a longer term strategy regarding RSS inside MSFT apps? - 23:30I’m looking forward to this one. I’m a big fan of Niall’s podcasts with Om Malik.
Niall may have some insights relevant to your recent postings on blogging for employment. I recall he posted a “syndicated resumé� in Atom format, complete with podcast enclosures, shortly before he left Technorati.
Did he have an inkling of an offer from Microsoft before he quit Technorati? If not, I find it interesting that he had enough confidence in his own “brand�, as represented by his blog, to feel he could make that leap into the unknown. - 24:39
Bif
Bif wants to know how you think the US will do in the World Cup? - 31:30
Me again!
How do you keep up with information management. What tools do you use? - 33:51
Will you have to give up the Mac working for MS? Or will you use Bootcamp? - 35:40
Download the entire interview here
(17.9mb mp3).
P.S. I have already found the Murphy’s at Microsoft.
Thanks for including my question - this is one for the ‘classic’ collection where you go back in 5-10 years and re-assess. This is exactly the kind of thing my readers need to hear.