I first came across Robert Scoble when I was adding my first round of RSS feeds and I have to admit at first I didn’t really like him; but he got added anyway because his posts seemed to be a constant supply of fodder for my RSS client.

As I read his from the hip rapid fire posts it also became clear that he in many ways was; and remains, a lightening rod of opinions which can be clearly seen in any of the comments of his library of posts. There have been times when his has created a firestorm within the tech blogosphere because of his posts but to his credit he is the first one to admit when he has been wrong.

Also to his credit Robert in many ways single handedly provided a human face to the nameless Microsoft machine while he worked there. Even though he tries hard to deflect any kudos for this by pointing out that he wasn’t the only blogger at Microsoft, it is his name and face that people remember when people talk about the changing of Microsoft.

I wrote yesterday about Microsoft’s newest evangelist Michael Gartenberg leaving to return to his previous job and I also wondered in that post if Microsoft was finding it harder than they thought it would be to replace Robert. The first effort was to hire John Udell, who in my opinion hasn’t proven to be even close to a humanizing evangelist as Robert was. He might be satisfying the technical blogger but he isn’t touching the userbase in the same way. 

Good or bad that was the one thing that Robert could do and do well. He talked to the users, he gave them an inside look to Microsoft and he was willing to listen. So when he left to join PodTech, Microsoft lost its face to the world and still hasn’t gotten it back

Recently PC World included Robert as one of The Most Important People on the Web to which he quickly responded that there were many other more deserving people than him to fill that spot. It is this self-deprecating manner that appears to irritate some folks and makes him popular with others. Whether this attitude of his is real or just part of a greater marketing ploy; as some seem to think reading through comments to his posts, only he knows for sure but I personally think he has earned that place.

Sure there are times where his habit of bandwagoning and hyperbole can be a bit irritating but that is who Robert is and with that comes an honesty that I like. Others may not and may consider him nothing more than a blogging gadfly but it can’t be denied that he hasn’t had an effect on blogging.

While the results of search that produces a list of Related People may not be the most accurate it is interesting to see what was suggested when I used Live.com for an image search of Robert Scoble; which you can see in the image to the right of this post. The majority of which are the movers and shakers of both blogging and the tech industry as a whole.

Take him or leave him that is every readers right but I know that I look forward everyday to reading his posts and following the trail of his links to see where they lead. At the least a Scoble post is just another piece of news and at the most he gives you the breadcrumbs to follow to new and cool things.

Let’s hope he keeps on being that reluctant icon and scoblizing the blogging world for us.

Conversation Tags: blogs, blogging, Robert Scoble