During the BlizzCon 2008 show, a StarCraft II Q&A session was held with the long haired and rockin' Chris Sigaty and Samwise Didier. Among others, OMGStarCraft.com was there, and have edited up an interesting summary of the session.
Among the answers they give, we are informed on what changed with Blizzard after the Activision merger (free Guitar Hero boxes to all employees), the reason for the trilogy (if you had not already heard about that lot already) and a confirmation that the StarCraft Beta will start in 2009!
Other interesting facts include that the internal company Alpha started just a few weeks before BlizzCon, and this is interesting as it seems that Blizzard have done away with the classical "Friends & Family Alpha" that they used to do. Since Blizzard now is some 2700 man strong, they don't need to bring in "outsiders" like they used to. Friends and family of the people in higher positions probably get to play this Alpha though. Still, this is not a sure bet. WoW: Wrath of the Lich King had a Friend & Family Alpha, and so could StarCraft 2 have, at a later stage. Still, the amount of leaks from the F&F Alpha of WotLK might be the very reason SC2 won't see one. Friends and Family will likely instead be invited to the beta.
Worth noting is also that Sigaty specifically mentions "Battle.net 2 beta" as part of the beta.
My friend Scott on OMG StarCraft also promised us more information in upcoming posts. Looking forward to it!
- StarCraft Videos
http://www.zupidoo.com/game.php?id=35 thats the um website looks pretty accurate to me