I went to work at Microsoft Corporation in 2003 to build a competitor to Google News. The whole experience was something of an experiment, for me, for the team I worked with, and the product we built. Automated, personalized news is a bit of a solution in search of a problem. I think the product we built has tons of potential, but it is likely well a head of what customers care the most about when they look for news.

You can check out the site at newsbot.msn.com

One of the most fun parts of the experience was working on international newsbots:

• Belgium
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• Spain
• Switzerland – French?
• Switzerland – German?
• United?Kingdom
• Latin?America
• United?States
• US – Spanish?
• South?Africa
• India
• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• Philippines
• Singapore

Some of the highlights of the project? Well it was a great team, that was willing to let a new guy work with them and inject some new chops into the MSN way of doing things. I think we both learned a lot from each other. It was fun fighting the battles inside MSN, for the most part. It was awesome to meet Michael Kinsley and hear about everything he had hoped to do with Slate. What else can I say? If you ever have a chance to build a personalized news aggregator, you should definitely do it.

I quit Microsoft to work on this crazy idea where you share your ideas with the world and people help each other. It’s called 43 Things!