But good guys can make mistakes, give bad advice, waste people's time and money on dead end ideas.

I think he did a good job of putting a human face on Microsoft. Whoever actually ended that relationship made a big mistake. Microsoft replaced him with a Borg-like robot, who was soon forgotten.

The association with Microsoft gave Scoble a false aura of technical savvy (of course Microsoft does a pretty lousy job of picking winning technologies too).

The problems Scoble is having are just the tip of the iceberg for the many technology co-conspirators surrounding him. What value are the many blogs pumping up the next potential recipient of venture capital now that VC spending is drying up? Innovation for innovations sake is over for now (and maybe for a long time). People want to hear success stories about tools that work, right now, not some brand new untried thing that only Scoble (or those like him) are privileged to know about.

I suspect a great number of bloggers who are doing this for money, speaking fees, product placement opportunities, stealth marketing and in many cases, unearned credit for various technical achievements are going to be looking around for other work as well and quite a few of them are going to have to reintroduce themselves to the drudgery of a real job.

Just because you work hard at something (and I don't think anyone would deny that Scoble works hard at what he does) doesn't mean you are producing anything of real value. I think that is something a lot of folks are going to have to struggle with in this new "share the wealth" economic system we are entering into.

Be careful what you wish for.

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