Nathan's space says it all.  Nathan was kind enough to notify us personally of what appeared to be a security issue in MSN Spaces.  Turns out that "security issue" is really just a layout bug that we are working to fix; but it is completely understable why Nathan and others freaked out initially.  I did too.  It looks bad.  But the great part about it?  Nathan didn't freak out publicly; he gave us a chance to investigate it.  Now that is being a great netizen.

No, I am not going to go into detail about the bug.  I don't want to focus on the negatives here!

Anyway, read the rest of Nathan's post for some insight into how powerful blogging for customer interaction can be.  The old ways are slowly giving way to a much more collaborative virtual society.  Ain't it all grand.

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Security response, a blogger's tale

Blogging is not just about marketing and getting your message across, it creates a community of people who are passionate (one way or the other) about your product.  It allows customers to feel like that have an "inside source" with your organization that they know and are familiar with ... even though they've never actually met them, emailed, or spoken on the phone.  And you give your product team, who in the IT space is usually holed up in cubeland isolated from the customers, an outlet to reach out and communicate with the people they're really working for.  Bring these two together and the synergy is amazing - a "closed" issue before the tradition mechanisms of handling the problem have really begun to churn.