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In our continuing efforts to support our membership & help them better engage with Microsoft, we have become an official MS Expert Zone community.

More about the Community Partnership Program:
Microsoft is striving to deliver an integrated community experience that responds to the needs of our customers and provides a sense of belonging. To that end, we are committed to nurturing online venues for customers to interact, collaborate, provide feedback and get help where and when they want it. Microsoft recognizes the symbiotic relationship between Microsoft and non-Microsoft community Web sites. Together they provide a diverse, sophisticated, and important resource of information for everyone.

The Benefits
As a Related Community, your site or service will receive contextually relevant placement (a link and description) on the No. 1 corporate site and fourth largest Web site on the planet (according to Jupiter Media Metrics, 2003).

-You will have the opportunity to engage with a Microsoft Community Lead. A community lead is your personal, direct contact with Microsoft who can help you find answers to difficult questions, learn about upcoming events, and gain more insight into the product life cycle.

-You have the opportunity to include the Microsoft® Related Community logo on your community site or service.

-Your community site has the potential to be promoted to a Featured Community, receiving elevated exposure across Microsoft Web sites with your community site logo, link, and description. This is a great way to bring new traffic to your community site or service.

To Qualify
This program is open to contextually relevant community Web sites that meet all of the following base-level participation guidelines*:

-Predominantly devoted to peer-to-peer community features. Example: Newsgroups, discussion boards, chats, blogs, etc.

-Supports Microsoft products and/or services and technologies
Provides a visible reciprocal link back to the contextually relevant Microsoft community site home page

* If at any time your site does not meet all of these requirements, it may be pulled from the program. Microsoft will not include links to sites with inappropriate language, nudity/sexual content, violence, gambling/drugs/alcohol, etc.