Scoble leaves Microsoft

Microsoft's most visible blogger, and all-around great guy, is moving south. Robert Scoble's signed on to take what he learned about blogging and podcasting and vlogging with Microsoft in Redmond to work with John Furrier's PodTech.net. Podtech concentrates on producing content for businesses and has more than a dozen clients including Intel Corp. and Yahoo. (Listen to Scoble's podcast about his move.)

On his Web log, Scoble mentioned some reasons for him to make the move south to Silicon Valley. One is to be closer to his son. The other is it'll be flat-out more exciting to work in a startup company where he'll be the 19th employee than one of 61,000 at Microsoft.

Scoble expects that podcasts and mobile video are going to get a lot bigger. "When Microsoft comes into that market it'll create new opportunities," he blogged. "New media distribution channels. And it's not the only one coming. I've seen and heard about some really awesome stuff coming soon from other companies as well. That all spells OPPORTUNITY for all of us."

Speaking of opportunity ... Scoble says that he spoke with Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom over the weekend - who told him her videoblog is now seeing about 300,000 viewers a day. "Did you know that advertisers are now paying her $85,000 per week?," he added. "That's almost as much money as I made in an entire year of working at Microsoft."

Meanwhile, back in Redmond, there are still hundreds of in-house bloggers. And it’s always possible Scoble’s exit will re-invigorate company-critical, analytical and thoughtful postings from Mini-Microsoft, like Bob did.