I'm going to have to disagree wih you just a little, Paul. I think the attention paid to Scoble says more about Microsoft than it does about either Scoble or the blogosphere -- my point being that part of the fascination with him stems from the fact that he is such a contrast to the vast, soulless, Borg-plex that is Microsoft.

It may well be self-evident but it seems obtuse to me. What exactly are you trying to say?

The bogosphere spawns the A-list cult of personality, due to the exponential nature of the attention-distribution ,combined with the rewards for being "provocative".

The company that Bill built does not get much of Bill's time any more. Give Ozzie some credit for turning it around (still a w.i,p). But give Scoble credit for putting a brave face on it in the last 18 months. One of the highest marketing paybacks I have ever seen in tech.

Rudy was not running the country after 9/11, but surely he should get credit for giving it a morale boost. Ditto for Scoble.

Every blogger - you, me, yes, even Nick Carr - owe Scoble for his book and other efforts to make blogging far more respectable than it was even a year ago...

Mathew, et al. --

Apparently I'm in the minority. My view is that Scoble is a cute media sideshow, but ultimately irrelevant. Fellow bloggers are entertained and enraptured by the sight of some tech PR guy (which is what Scoble really is/was) being touted as the Next Big Thing in media, but there is really very little there there.

Yes, pace Mathew, there was a macabre fascination with the sight of Scoble typing away from deep with Microsoft. But put it in proper context: Aggressive, unusual, and in-your-face promotional and PR tactics are nothing new for Microsoft, the company that made Wag-Ed (and Pam Edstrom) in particular who it is.

Finally, I don't dislike Scoble, but I also don't believe I owe him anything. Leaving aside that I started doing this silly stuff well before he did, most people in Fortune 500 America in the broader population have never heard of him (or me for that matter). Taking blogging truly mainstream such that a story like "Scoble Leaves Microsoft" grows beyond being a Made in Memeorandum one-day wonder will require something more than a former pet blogger at a once-dominant technology company.

agree, as i have said here before...who cares about these guys (the ebay guy, the yahoo guy, the google guy, scoble, etc). they never say anything remotely interesting anymore (did they ever?), which isn't surprising since absolutely nothing interesting is happening in that industry. the web is a big YAWN in 2006. want to see the future? look at secondlife. the web stack has hit its limits.

I completely agree, a person is not bigger then a company, give it 4 weeks and people dealing with microsoft will have forgotten all about scoble.

When running a major site i've seen this happen over and over. Super star forum members thinking they are bigger then the site and if they leave tons will follow. I've even gone so far as to ban entire cliques of 20 people. 2 weeks later there is a new clique and no one remembers the old.

Kedrosky is right, albeit cryptic.

The Scoble thing says much more about blogdom than about Scoble or Microsoft.

This is easily confirmed by looking at the way in which everyone and their dog writes about the phenomenon as if it is news in itself. It isn't.

It is just another example of blogging about blogging, the ultimate waste of time, compounded by writing about yourself.

Scoble was one of the most egregious examples of writing about irrelevant rubbish. His signal-to-noise ratio is way too low. Sad as it may be when his family gets sick, do I really care? What is the point of writing about it? To make the world sympathise?

This is what differentiates blogging from proper journalism. To much "Me".

Maybe you don't owe him anything but 75% of my tech based feeds are from links on his site. Including yours.

I'm not sure if we can measure what it says about the blogosphere vs Scoble or MS.

Scoble was a big promoter of the community, and the blogosphere, he often passes his fame off to his readers (I saw him do that on Sat)

I've got some predictions on what will happen as a result of the Scoble Effect Here

http://tinyurl.com/rdsec

Nice point by yayoi :-)

And I would agree that much too much has been made of the whole affair, and of Scoble in general. So what does it say that the Wall Street Journal picked up the story?

Since a bunch of bloggers have said he's profoundly influenced them, perhaps there's something you're not quite grasping about Scoble's blogging?

Mathew -- The WSj and Reuters picked it up. I still think it's a non-story, one that appeals to the media echo chamber -- blogosphere and traditional -- far more than to real people.

Gabe -- On a personal level I think Scoble has an engaging style, and he has written eloquently about his recent family loss. I can see how those might influence people. Beyond that ... I'm afraid I don't get the whole Scoble fascination. Never have.

note to self: writing about scoble = lots of traffic.

Seriously, lets see if Scoble maintains such a large voice after he joins a Web 2.0 competitor (to many) and is not simply shining the light inside the wonderously mysterious MSFT beast...

Prolly Not Methinks.

..and it really puts Techmeme into perspective as well-from friday to sunday it was all Scoble :p

Paul,

I think you point fails to acknowledge that something can be both significant in its importance to the blogosphere and relatively insignificant to the world at large.

At the end of the day, Robert Scoble has impacted the perception and uptake of blogging. That's without debate. And frankly so have you. As an enterprise-IT junkie and investor, I was reading blogs long before I wrote one. If we're to give any credence to the Long Tail (which as a blogger how can you not?), we have to accept that every blog finds its audience, somewhat democratically. Whether your blog (or my blog or Scoble's blog) appeals to 2 people or 2 million, it's up to us (the blogger) to determine if it's worth our efforts, right?

Scoble clearly didn't create and sustain an audience by being irrelevant. Sure he may not have the impact on Microsoft that some bloggers may believe, but he was also far more plugged into the culture and everyday goings on within the organization than most of us. And THAT, is tremendously valuable given how important Microsoft remains to so many of our lives.

Finally, why begrudge the guy his 15 minutes? I don't know Scoble personally, but I wish him well and think he's as entitled to his own version of success and happiness as anyone.

Jason

does your post show that you have some bizarre fascination about him as well? You've posted about him a few times and it always comes off as if you have a chip on your shoulder. Let it go.

Ji Mi --

There are 3,236 posts here, and there are three, including this one, that could be said to about Scoble. Doesn't sound like much of a fascination to me.

More broadly, there's no chip here, other than my continuing bafflement at why people take a pleasant PR guy so seriously. I actually think Robert is much better suited to Podtech, where I would cheerfully see him earn millions.

P.

Well, I guess the debate is over -- even Scoble himself says he agrees with you :-)

Main Entry: blog
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: an online diary (of an ADD-suffering megalomaniac); a (always) personal (sometimes) chronological log of thoughts (yeah, right!) published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log
Example: Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author (and also their need for constant attention).
Etymology: shortened form of Weblog
Usage: blog, blogged, blogging v, blogger n

I find it quite interesting when people wax eloquently about 'personal space', privacy etc yet are willing to bare their all via blogs and such. Hypocrites!

"I blog, therefore I am" syndrome.

The fact that Paul Kedrosky is blogging about Scobleizer proves that the blogsphere is relevant and influential (and maybe more importantly interesting). And, could eveyone stop loving to hate the big guys? Its just a large organization with typical large organizational challenges. Microsoft, if anything, is a great experiment in getting lots and lots of great minds together. Try visiting sometime. - David Jemeyson

(Pre-S: I promise this'll be my last comment on this chain).

If you don't believe my definition of blog above, you should visit David Jemeyson's (the previous poster) page (excerpt below) - gawd! It's not even funny when your idol is Chuck Norris (David: How about a footnote that you replaced "Chuck Norris" with "David Jemeyson" to create your (blog) masterpiece?).

Can you spell 'Vanity'?

*************
Welcome to Mambo!
Written by David Jemeyson
Saturday, 19 November 2005

* David C Jemeyson once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.
**************

Quick question. Was a chair thrown at him in Microsoft? :)

Yes, if you read my blog today you'd have seen a fun picture of the guy who runs the IE team throwing a chair in my honor.

Steve Ballmer just wrote and said he never throws chairs.

Robert Scoble will survive MSFT because he has become a regular part of many people's online habits, and he will survive if he continues writing about the industry. I survived leaving the Financial Times partly because I continued doing the same things I did at the FT, reporting on the business of Silicon Valley.

And the coverage of Robert leaving MSFT was huge because that reflects the size of his influence. Yes, part of that was related to his insider status at MSFT but not entirely. His personal network of high profile blogerati will ensure he will keep much of his audience, imho.