…XBOX LIVE. OK, indulge me for a moment will ya.

I recently got an XBOX 360 and got signed up for the XBOX LIVE which allows you to play video games online with or against other gamers from around the globe. I never thought in a million years that this would be a place to recruit someone. But sure enough, while I was into a game last night, I found myself thinking just that. Hey now, quit laughing over there. No seriously - let me fill you in.

Last night there were over 500,000 people online in the XBOX LIVE community, with a vast majority of those numbers from the U.S. When you sign up, you set yourself up with a screen name, much like the way you would when signing up for any other networking community, like MySpace for instance. While playing, you wear a headset, and over the course of your gaming, you talk to the other people you are playing against (some good and bad talk mind you), but there is ALOT of dialogue there. You find yourself asking questions such as “Where you from BATMAN 320?” or “What do you do X-MAN?” XBOX LIVE actually makes recruiting easy believe it or not. You have the ability to add friends to your personal list and re-connect with them each time online (so you can build some rapport). You can also have one-on-one chats in the online lobbys outside of the games. In addition, you have the ability to look into your “friends” lists as well, and see who they know (easy way to introduce yourself to new people then).

What do you think the demographics are on the people who are playing in XBOX LIVE? My thoughts are these are people who like technology and perhaps a large percentage of them would make excellent candidates for open technical positions, if you know how to talk to them. What are your thoughts?