Insider Blogging looks at the employees blogs of our favorite companies, exposing the last legal way to get "inside information."

How many times can you say "ouch"? That's pretty much the theme at MSFT insider blogs today. Over at Mini-Microsoft, the discussion seems to be centered on Steve Ballmer's comments about how great it was to fire people. Mini thinks that Ballmer "needs to be taking some advice vs. giving it.... If you're in one of the groups that Kevin notes as being part of the redundant overhead (e.g., photos), you know it's time to start looking around before someone starts arranging the chairs." One commenter wonders if the company is creating huge headcount just to cut it. Hah. "Cut 10% employees after shipping Vista (thanks for the hard work!) - stock goes up 10%. Cut another 20% in 2007 - stock will top $30," Anonymous says. I wouldn't count on those numbers, though, if I were you...

Robert Scoble, on the other hand, says basically nothing but wonders about how cruel and unforgiving is the world where profits can be up by 13% and the stock can be down by nearly the same percentage. Oh, Scoble, sweetie! Let me just get you a big ol' $30-billion-dollar box of tissues...

Meanwhile, over at Time Warner, AOL's Ted Leonsis is loving YouTube. It's so viral, he says (viral is still cool right?). It's changing the marketing paradigm of TV and movies. It's so great, surely AOL must be doing it! And they are, kind of, by investing in the YouTube competitor, Veoh, as one commenter points out. Hmm...

[Photo Robert Scales]