Rule #1: Don’t pull down posts

agree...this probably wasn't a story if they post was left up.

Maybe thats why it was pulled ;)

Don't count on me being surprised when Microsoft learns from this...and starts strategically pulling posts for maximum distribution.

Well Doug called it I think.

Attention is what gains market share, whatever the means.

Pulling posts is censorship, and like GTA3etc, doing it once it is clearly too late does no real harm and generates a stack of interest - benign or no.

Don't bother believing that you have thought of something no-one else has in these connected times - they have already found it along with a way to exploit it.

Like Doug and Paul said, it certainly makes for a lot of attention getting. On the other hand, perhaps MS is stuck on stupid?

Yeah, I doubt that Microsoft could do this on purpose. Let's say they do use that as a manipulation technique, though. Word would get out and then the story will become that instead of their products.

If they want bloggers to talk about their manipulation techniques rather than focus on their products and what they are trying to do, then they should try that.

Most of the geeks at Microsoft, though, genuinely want you to try their work. So I doubt they'd try this.

Does Michael actually know that "someone yelled", or is that speculation? Doesn't seem to be anything worth yelling about. Maybe he hit Publish when he meant to hit Save as Draft?

Joe: I don't know, but it fits the pattern. I've seen several things get pulled after internal heat got too hot in the oven. Bloggers need to realize that once it's up the damage is done. Just leave it up. Pulling it down will just make us point fingers and make up conspiracy theories. That's called breaking into PR jail because it takes attention away from your product.

Joe Cheng makes a good point. No one except the original poster knows why he took it down. I've personally made the mistake of publishing instead of saving for future publication.

As the old saying goes "Never say never." If pulling a post un-pisses off somebody that is pissed off then that may be the wisest course of action. And let's face it, tomorrow there will be a different meme and this will be long forgotten.

David: the problem is that when you work for Microsoft everyone is watching you like a hawk and RSS aggregators usually cache stuff anyway. I have pulled a few posts and I always leave a note explaining why I pulled it. That way it might attract attention but everyone will have an explanation to link to.

Scoble what damage was done from MS' perspective? I rather doubt anyone thinks less of the product. It appears more people are talking about it now than when Arrington first speculated about it a while back. So, they succeeded in spite of themselves. Don't think they won't now see this a a good strategy. Get bloggers poop-pooing you ab out pulling a post few would likely have read in the first place? Accidental brilliance if you ask me.

This reminds me of the Office 97 file incompatibility issues MS had. While it was a dumb decision, it ultimatey got people to likely upgrade faster than they would have otherwise. Makes you wonder if that was the ultimate intent of the incompatibility.

You mean like Matt Nunn did when he removed his post about his wife and kids' experience when they last flew on Frontier Airlines? I was going to link to it, but I refreshed my browser tab, and it was gone!

Scoble, what do you mean, "Microsoft will have to learn" not to pull down posts? It's individual employees that have to learn this. And Microsoft does have the largest number of employee bloggers (by far), so naturally there'll be times when one of those large number of employees will post something he regrets and then compounds the mistake by pulling it. That doesn't mean that this is company policy, like your "Microsoft will have to learn" statement suggests.

Brewster: Microsoft and its employees are one and the same thing. Thanks for noticing!

I think Scoble will have to learn that people will do this sort of thing: pulling posts after posting them. It really, actually, isn't too hard to understand.