Not having learned the lessons from Slate and MSNBC, Microsoft is once again flirting with content. This time, by launching a blog media network. Essentially what it is doing is taking a page from Jason and Nick’s playbook, and copying it. Unfortunately, at first blush, this looks like a copy made by Xerox machine circa 1975. MSN Fliters as set-up are devoid of personality, color and even upto the minute information. In other words, they are essentially everything a blog should not be.

Taking a cue from Google’s “beta” tactic, MSN says this is beta for now. Paidcontent points to Mediapost listing which shows that MSN has been hiring for these blog writing positions. Essentially incumbent thinking. PaidContent’s reaction, “ho hum…” Pro-HipHop, sums it up best…

> Launching an official blog without identifying the writers basically reduces it to a content management system and feeds into Microsoft’s ‘you will be assimilated into the cyborgsphere’ public image.

On further thought, this is precisely the move SixApart should have made. Turn it blogs.com domain into a proper content aggregation play, with help of five editors picking out the best posts from its fast growing array of writer, many of them as famous as Chris Anderson, a slew of VCs, and well even some celebrities. How about that guys? And for Microsoft, well keep trying, you got two more tries to go.