Microsoft Gets Scobleized

I don't normally write about personnel moves, but the news that Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft to join the start-up Podtech.net is certainly a blogosphere event of the first order.

Scoble has been the acceptable face of Microsoft. More: he seems to have helped change the company to the extent that it is Microsoft, rather than Google, say, that really gets this blogging stuff (come on Google, wake up at the back). His departure raises a big question: how will Microsoft fare without him? Has he successfully planted the blog culture there, or are its roots shallow?

As for Scoble, personally I think he's bonkers moving from a company that presumably would have done anything to keep him. But then I reckon all this video podcasting lark is a flash in the pan; for me, this is just Flash write large - a terribly misguided attempt to turn the Internet into television.

But I could be wrong.