Face it. Microsoft does not provide the best technical information for their own products. Despite all the improvements the company has made for their product docs over the years, and notwithstanding the volumes of hours each product team spends on the documentation process, IT Pros still reach out to other sources for real-world information that is generally more useful. Sites like Windows IT Pro and myITforum.com have long provided IT Pros with excellent technical information to help fill the Microsoft gaps, and over the past 5 years or so, personal blogs have helped continue the push to enrich the web with better content.
Microsoft has recently unveiled a new direction for online documentation and technical content. Curah! is a new, Windows Azure-hosted service that seeks to centralize the best of the web (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name, taking on a Yahoo!-like impression). I wrote about the service back in July 2013. At the time, it was called "Curated Answers." I had a hand in helping write some of the first content during the beta stages which was used to aid in making the business case to the Microsoft decision makers.
In essence, Curah! is a resource where anyone can sign in with a Microsoft Account, add your favorite and most valuable technical links, attach your own perspective and then publish it on the site. Since the Internet is so large, content can become stale, and it's hard to locate the best, most useful technical information, Curah! allows us all to ensure that the best information is easy to find.
I'm sure you have already formulated a stack of questions about this service like:
- What's the intent?
- Is this meant to replace some other Microsoft technology information service?
- Why the name 'Curah!'?
Next week sometime I'll be posting an interview with Bryan Franz. Bryan is in charge of the Curah! effort at Microsoft and will be providing a lot of unique information about the new service you won't find anywhere else. Check back.
In the interim, feel free to check out the new service and curate your very first curation: Curah!
