Channel 8

By Will Perry – Microsoft Student Partner

With lectures, coursework deadlines and long evenings in the SU, how can anyone possibly be expected to keep up to date with technology too!? Luckily the nice folks at MS have packaged together all you’ll ever need to stay way ahead of the game at the new student online community: Channel8.ms.

Whatever it is about technology that hits the spot for you, I’m pretty sure channel 8 has something you’re going to want to see – from imagine cup ideas and what’s new in Visual Studio 2008, to finding a job and even ‘Why Software Sucks’. You can use iTunes or Zune software to subscribe to the Channel8 video podcast feed too, just sync and go – technology vids on the bus? Life doesn’t get any better!

Video on its own, of course, is nothing new, and Channel 9 has been putting great technical content online for a couple of years now, but what really makes Channel 8 shine is the content is produced by students, for students. The site features cool cutting edge technology and interviews with industry experts about all the things you wish your school would teach you (even though they never do) like Ingo Rammer talking about how to Debug your code,  David Platt talking about user experience and some upcoming videos about Test, Design and Service Oriented Architecture. It’s not just videos either, you’ll find code snippets, tips and tricks, blogs and coming soon screencasts, too – and if you can’t find what you’re looking for, just leave some feedback.

I’ve spent a couple of months working with Channel 8 to help produce some of the great content that’s available online now – and there’s more in the pipeline, too. During TechEd Developers in Barcelona, littleguru and I interviewed close to 30 speakers about a wide and varied selection of stuff, we’re working now with the rest of the channel 8 team to get that content online. It great to speak to some of the speakers one-on-one about the topics they were passionate about – we’re not the world’s best interviewers, but it was good fun for both us and the people we spoke to. You’ll find new and varied content on channel 8 every few days, and next year will see even more social and community features being added to the site, including forums. So keep checking back throughout the new year!