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

I love rumors. I love conspiracy theories, especially when they're about the inner workings of corporations. And I love blogging celebrities.

That's why I love this story: it has all three, with a special dash of Microsoft thrown in. Brent Strange of QAInsight.net is serving up six reasons why he thinks Robert Scoble of Scobleizer and formerly of Microsoft is Mini-Microsoft, the anonymous insider blogger. I wondered that several months ago, but discarded it due to what Scoble mentions himself: their very divergent writing styles.

I had fun observing Robert Scoble from not-very-afar at Blogher (he was chatting with folks in the lobby whilst I walked back and forth, trying to get my toddler to sleep), and after having stalked him up close and personal I highly doubt it: Scoble is eager, zany, a bit of a nut (in a nice way! really!), while Mini seems tortured, secretive, highly stressed. These personalities shine through their writing and it would be difficult to imagine Scoble -- whose talents definitely lie more in technology than the literary arts -- putting on that mantle.

Strange's reasons include a coincidence of timing (Mini-Microsoft started about a year after Scoble's blog began, about the right amount of time for burnout; and Mini didn't post while Scoble was distracted by the death of his mother), the lack of "insider" information on Mini's blog since Scoble left Microsoft, and the lack of duplication between the two blogs -- Strange deeply analyzes the news covered by both blogs and finds no overlap. I'm not convinced, but the blogosphere loves a rumor, a conspiracy theory, and a brush with blogerati all rolled into one ...

Sarah Gilbert has a Wharton MBA and worked in investment banking for several years, then at a series of increasingly edgy startups before finding her calling, producing blogs for AOL. She doesn't own stock in Microsoft.

Insider blogging: Robert Scoble, is he Mini-Microsoft? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.