CorpBlog developments : MuSoft

CorpBlog developments : MuSoft
Feb 10th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Does Robert Scoble, a celebrity blogger on Microsoft's payroll, herald the death of traditional public relations?
ROBERT SCOBLE, known in the blogosphere as “the Scobleizer”, is a phenomenon not just because he has had an unusually strange career of late, but because his example might mark the beginning of the end of “corporate communications” as we know it. Mr Scoble is, first, a blogger—ie, somebody who keeps an online journal (called a “web log” or “blog”) to which he posts thoughts and web links several times a day. But Mr Scoble is also an employee of Microsoft, the world's largest software company, where he holds the official title of “technical evangelist”. Those two roles are intertwined. It was his blogging prowess that led to his job, and much of the job consists of blogging.
Later :
“It's not the end of PR but the end of the old PR department,” he says. “The clarifying force will be credibility and reputation.” The truth is, nobody yet knows how corporate blogging will evolve.