It’s great to see all the coverage of Scoble leaving Microsoft – For the uninitiated, Robert Scoble is a very popular blogger that works for Microsoft and Robert achieved what millions and millions of dollars could not do. Through his blog, Scoble humanized Microsoft and offered some much needed transparency that led a lot of people to rethink their assessment of Microsoft as an evil company (Disclaimer: my brother works for Microsoft). By opening up Microsoft via channel 9 and getting other people (3000 by latest count) within Microsoft to blog, Scoble enabled people access directly into Microsoft and peeled away all of the facade to show Microsoft as a company of people where product decisions get made by developers and managers coming to some consensus and now via some master evil plan. For the record,Scoble is leaving Microsoft to join a startup in San Francisco named PodTech.net where he will serve as vice president of content media and help PodTech.net and get them a ton of exposure. Congratulations to the PodTech.net team as they are getting a great person on their team and the added bonus is all this publicity is a huge plus – You can’t buy publicity like this.

I knew this story would be great fodder for the blogosphere but it’s great to see ‘real’ news organizations like AP, Reuters and BBC News covering his departure. Who would have guess just a year ago that a bloggers departure from a company would generate this much attention from the media? I guess this just reaffirms the power of the blog and how important blog will continue to be as companies move forward to get their message out and market their brand. I can see a future where bloggers will be like free-agents in sports, blogging for the highest bidder. 🙂 For the record, I am willing to leave my current employment for a seven figure salary and I’ll bring my 500 blog readers with me. 🙂

I wonder what Microsoft will do to replace Scoble. I do hope they replace him with another blogger as companies need a public face and I think it’s crucial to have that one blog that’s the face of the company.For Microsoft, Scoble has been that just like Jonathan Schwartz is for Sun and countless other examples. I guess the one positive for Microsoft is that people will now finally believe Scoble that Vista does indeed rock. 🙂