Spending “three to eight hours per day” on his link blog has overwhelmed Scoble. It's a little unclear how blogging is incorporated into the Microsoft workday; it appears that while Microsoft has a commendable “blogging is good” attitude, I think it's supposed to be done on your own time (I suppose I could, you know, actually call someone and find out, but this whole blogging “make up assumptions and then rant about them” thing is easier).

Scoble's been an interesting canary in the coalmine. He's always been the most visible outlier in terms of trying to keep a handle on the blogosphere as it relates to his particular interest and he's been, I would say, largely successful at tracking popular reaction to Microsoft in realtime -- a solidly challenging topic. (As opposed to say, Divester, which tracks SCUBA blogs and news and consists mainly of “Oh, and here's some pretty photos on this guy's site.“)

So, it looks like even the largest corporation can track and spin online reaction in realtime, if they're willing to make it part of someone's job description. Given the obvious benefits, it's a no-brainer that “chief blogger” is going to become a part of the marketing / PR function. The smallest companies will put it on their most enthusiastic writer, medium-sized companies will outsource it (probably stealthily) to PR firms, and large companies will give it to internal marketing.

Farewell, Scoble's Link Blog! We shan't see your likes again!