What to do with Windows Azure?

I got my invitation code for Windows Azure today.  Except for the PDC keynotes, I hadn’t really looked at anything Azure related.  So I vaguely have this idea about what Azure is about (cloud computing?  OK, what does that look like, exactly?), but what do I do with it?  After about a minute, I thought of doing a blog engine.  Until… my first look at an actual Windows Azure app was… you guessed it – somebody’s blog.

Granted, their blog engine is a little weak – no search and you can’t even go “back” to newer posts after looking at the “older posts” link.  But still, I can’t help but feel a day late and a dollar short.

Thus, out of ideas, I’ll still attempt it.  Maybe I’ll wikify it or something.  I dunno.  If I spend too much time trying to think of the killer social app then I’m afraid Windows Azure 1.0 will be old and tired.

Now… where to start?

(update 11/21/2008) - It looks like Steve Marx's website is down.  Does that mean the cloud is down?!?!

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 21, 2008
  It's nice to see someone else is unsure of what to make of the cloud.
• Anonymous
  November 22, 2008
  I remember feeling more or less the same when I first learned about ASP around the 1996-97 timeframe.  Web pages - what could you DO with web pages besides display text and pictures?  At Tech Ed 97 (my first) I had the epiphany regarding ASP, came back home and wrote my first LOB web-app.I HOPE I'll have a similar experiece here with Azure(sans the trip to Orlando).  That ASP LOB app was short and sweet - definitely not "the killer" ASP app - but it was useful to others and opened up a set of new possibilities in the department at which I was working - and for me.
• Anonymous
  November 23, 2008
  Well, OK.  Epiphany may be too strong of a word here.  But in my last post, I wondered aloud