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February 11, 2005
If it's in the Economist it must be true
For some time now, I've been telling everyone I know that Robert Scoble has single handedly done more for Microsoft's public image than the all the zillions of dollars I spent on advertising while I was there.
Well now the Economist writes of him as the harbinger of the end of marketing communications as we know it. Actually, it's a very good article. Not only does it highlight the value of "such disarming honesty" but also the rise of the corporate blog. Interesting that "Microsoft's official PR boss will not even comment at all on the subject" while Sun's Jonathan Schwartz says “It's not the end of PR but the end of the old PR department. The clarifying force will be credibility and reputation.”
Finally, they highlight that, in the world of Sarbanes-Oxley, it's probably “only a matter of time” before a serious blogging embarrassment leads to litigation," prompting internal compliance lawyers to cast an eye on their firm's bloggers. I recently gave a talk to the Washington State Bar walking through the ups and downs of our own blogging experience with the playbook and much of the talk turned to this kind of exposure.
Nonetheless, I really hope that Scoble keeps on Scobleizing. It's good for everyone. And I hope that more companies realize that smart people saying the truth is good for them. And besides, he even liked our book ;-)
Posted by johnza at February 11, 2005 08:30 PM
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» Robert Scoble, Blogging and the Fall of PR as we Know it (or not) from Marketing Tom - Internet Marketing
The Economist has a great article on Robert Scoble - Chief Humanising Officer - the highest profile blogger on the web and Microsoft employee, to boot. In a nutshell: Robert Scoble started out as a blogger for NEC. He is now an employee of Microsoft. ... [Read More]
Tracked on February 21, 2005 04:29 AM
Comments
Hey, I'm just trying to help out since our TV advertising has been so lame lately. Yeah, those are nice MSN Search ads on the Superbowl, but even they don't show the product or what's better about it than the competition.
Posted by: Robert Scoble at February 13, 2005 01:36 AM
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