Blogging is content that gets niche (and profitable) audiences to the doorstep of business's sites. It's no surprise that large companies have blogging staffs to communicate with customers these days. It's also great to see unfiltered voices step beyond the chokehold of marketing and PR departments to give a true voice to companies. Trust me, customers can tell the difference between a self-serving blog and a genuine one.

Software giant Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) just lost its main blogger who covered its flagship software product -- Windows Vista. Nick White said this week that "I want to share with you the bittersweet news that I am moving on to a role outside Microsoft" in order to join blog-centric company BuzzCorps. White will be replaced by Windows communications director Christopher Flores. Note to Flores: be honest with your audience and don't become a simple mouthpiece for Windows Vista, Share in the joys and disappointments both. Become a Microsoft outsider.

Does this mean that Microsoft still doesn't understand how to retain someone in a Web 2.0 role? Hardly, but the company is, by all measures, late to the game in a changing web world -- on multiple fronts. It's even poised to spend the largest amount ever for an acquisition if buying Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) ever comes to pass. Until then, its needs a central "all things Vista" representative -- something that can't be an easy task to accomplish.

Robert Scoble, the corporate blogger who agreed with Microsoft CEO Steve Blogger to "put a human face on the company", is leaving the world's largest software company for a Silicon Valley startup, PodTech.net. In a world where Scoble was given free reign to both laud Microsoft's apparent successes and harshly criticize Microsoft's failures and product gaffes, the Redmond giant will be losing the most vocal and visible employee they have. Well, besides Bill Gates, anyway.

Scoble's blog here was and will continue to be a beacon to many in the blogging, journalism and media world as a rate glimpse into the Microsoft culture as well as what goes on behind the doors of Microsoft the global software company. Scoble often chastised the Windows Vista team for delaying the new operating system so long, and he also pumped the xbox 360 for being first-to-market and for being a superior product. Investors in MSFT would have been wise to have paid attention to Scoble's musing at his blog, as it was open and telling unlike many corporate blogs today, which are PR windscreens more than anything.

Astute media knows this and generally disregards the windpipe blogs, but Scoble's was quite different. Alongside Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz -- who is the only CEO blogger in the Fortune 500 -- this new way of communicating with customers and the media with all guards down was an exceedingly pleasant breath of fresh air. Global corporations who seemingly fail to move at the speed of the internet could take a serious communications note from these two examples. This is a new day, and communicating with customers and the media in this fashion -- blogging, unplugged from marketing filters -- is a grand way to one-up your competitors.

[Disclosure: I own MSFT shares as of 6-12-06]