There’s evidently trouble afoot in Microsoft Corp’s content generation bunker. No sooner was Slate editor Michael Kinsley humiliatingly rejected for Tina Brown’s job at the New Yorker, but the email in which he explained to his staff and superiors exactly what had happened was swiftly and widely leaked. See Salon or the Industry Standard for the full gory details of that encounter. Next thing Microsoft knew, Kinsley’s immediate superior Peter Neupert, Redmond’s long-standing new media evangelist, departed to head a Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers- funded startup. As well as managing Slate, eleven-year MS veteran Neupert founded MSNBC Online and was in charge of advertising sales for all Microsoft’s internet properties. Microsoft’s forays into content have not yet paid off for the company. Maybe it should turn the digital cameras on its own employees and broadcast that little soap opera to the world. Wait. Maybe it already has.
