BizSpark News App

One of the things I hear from startups occasionally is, how come I never hear what’s going on with BizSpark? Well, I have a couple of answers that I usually give. First, you can visit BizSpark.com and you’ll see a list of our latest BizSpark Blog and news posts. Members of the Microsoft Emerging Business Team post to the site multiple times per week and you can also see the latest Startup of the Day posts. The second way we communicate with BizSpark members is through the monthly newsletter. You’ll get that if your contact information is up-to-date for your BizSpark account and you’ve “opted-in” to contact from Microsoft. We’ve also got an @BizSpark Twitter account and a Microsoft BizSpark Facebook page.

These are great sources of info. I wanted to make them even more accessible for people with Windows Phones, and so I created a new app called BizSpark News. BizSpark News pulls from the BizSpark.com blog, startup posts from Ignition Showcase, and a few other sources. It also pulls in the latest @BizSpark twitter posts and the latest BizSpark Case Studies from Microsoft.com. I personally need to keep up with all this stuff, so I built BizSpark News to make it easy.

You can get BizSpark News on Marketplace. This is the Zune Link.

This app was built using the awesome Social Viewer template available on CodePlex.

I’ve put out one update so far.

Changes in 1.1.

• Fixed a bug with the Facebook functionality. You should be able to post about an article you find in the app to your Facebook account now.
• Text fix on the About page

Current issues

• Tweeting may not be fully functional yet. Known issue with some Twitter apps on the phone according to the Social Viewer site.

Please drop a note to brianjo@microsoft.com with suggestions.  Thanks!