Microsoft recruits bloggers to preview Longhorn

Revving its Longhorn marketing engine, Microsoft Corp. is forming a team of bloggers who will get early access to prereleases of the operating system and will be asked to review the Windows XP successor.

Microsoft Longhorn evangelist and blogger Robert Scoble on Sunday started soliciting nominations for “Team 99” on Microsoft’s Channel 9 Web sitefor developers. The team is named after the highway that leads into Whistler, British Columbia, where the future operating system’s namesake Longhorn Saloon is located.